


To Do No Harm

by Lokifan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, Community: hd_erised, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, HP: EWE, Healer Draco Malfoy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Quidditch, Quidditch Player Harry Potter, Recovering From The War And Becoming Better People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:14:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 58,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokifan/pseuds/Lokifan
Summary: Draco hadn’t planned to end up as team Healer for the Chudley Cannons, but it’s a Healer job, so he’ll take it - and then Potter shows up, the glorious centre-of-attention Seeker, as ever. And someone with a grudge is sabotaging Quidditch teams, and it’s only a matter of time before the Aurors’ eyes turn to Draco.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CelestialCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialCat/gifts).



> Thank you mods for being enormously patient with me, and thank you TW and S for the amazing beta work. Apriicat, I hope you enjoy this! Pinch hitters deserve all the winter joy in the world :D

**September**

Draco hadn’t pictured his first day of work like this.

He’d imagined it a lot of different ways. At one point he’d wanted to be an Unspeakable, and he’d pictured going into the dimly imagined recesses of the Ministry and being inducted into mysteries. When he was fourteen he’d decided to be a journalist, and imagined striding into the Minister for Magic's offices with proof of scandalous corruption and swearing to go public despite all attempts to bribe him. (Even the attempts involving the gorgeous boys and girls who’d do anything to keep him quiet. But that was another fantasy.) Draco had had visions of being a Quidditch player too, which always involved walking onto the pitch as the rest of the team turned to see him and gasped.

Instead he was setting up in a room next to the changing rooms which smelled of feet, and watching the pitch out of the window.

It wasn’t what he’d expected from his first day as a working Healer, either.

He’d pictured it over and over again for three years. At first he’d thought of going into a specialised sub-field of potions, becoming the British Isles’ foremost expert under the tutelage of the most distinguished scholar in the field. 

Draco wasn’t that good, though. He was good at Hogwarts, but this was different. This was grown-up stuff. Students came from all over the world to train at St Mungo’s, whether for a term or the full three years. A bit of talent, some hard work when he was interested, a large donation in the family name - it couldn’t be enough.

He’d still imagined options, though. Becoming a consulting Healer for the Aurors, or heroically diagnosing the Minister’s daughter just in time. How they’d realise Draco could be trusted - better than that, _should_ be admired, and -

And a little way into his third year, applying for jobs after graduation, it became clear that St Mungo’s wasn’t going to hire him, and neither was anywhere else respectable.

There wasn’t an official ban on the Marked, so he’d foolishly hoped. But then there didn’t need to be.

_We cannot put our trust in someone with your history,_ ran the rejection letter. _You brought enemies into Hogwarts School, a place of sanctuary for young minds. We cannot put our patients’ lives into your hands._

Draco could even understand it. (Sort of.) At the time he’d given a cry of rage and thrown textbooks and test-tubes and potions ingredients across his flat until he caused a minor explosion. At some point his shouts had become something more like howls, like an injured animal, but no one had been there to see it.

All those late nights, all those missed meals, all that capacity for obsession that Draco had trained on his studies. That ability to carry on even as he pared himself down to a sliver of himself, to put his head down and work, to think laterally - it was how Draco had beaten protections that had been undefeated in a thousand years. It was how he’d kept himself and his parents alive. It had got him a first, and he hadn’t ended up half as Inferi-like as he had while working for Voldemort. 

It hadn’t got him a real Healer’s job, though.

Draco thumped his black Healer’s bag onto the worn wooden table pretending to be a desk and swore at himself. This was a job. It might be low pay for a qualified Healer, but it was a start. He’d do his job well and be quietly efficient and soon enough he’d be armed with a gushing reference from the team manager and on his way. Working for the Chudley Cannons was just going to be the start. Things would improve.

It could have been worse. He’d been on the edge of ending up a Knockturn Alley ‘pharmacist’. Draco shuddered at the mere thought, remembering the predatory eyes that gleamed from every shadow of that street.

Even in a world of fallen Malfoys, Draco had to have a respectable job. 

Draco caught sight of the long damp stain down one wall from a months-long small leak, and felt his shoulders sag.

He started to unpack his black bag. His mother had given it to him, the traditional gift on getting one’s Healer degree, and it had a little engraved metal disc on one side. _D. Malfoy, Healer._ Draco rubbed his thumb over it and felt a little warmth spark between his ribs. He was going to make her proud.

Draco unpacked his supplies and investigated his new domain. He wrote a letter to Greg in his head as he did so, describing his first day: the stained dark drawers slowly filling with bandages and potions and equipment, the scrubbed wooden table, and the blissful quiet of his room.

He discovered dried-out herbs left by the previous team Healer, and found unmistakable evidence of nibbling mice in the same drawer. Draco vanished the little brown pellets the mice had left behind, and composed a considerably more expletive-laden letter to Pansy.

“Malfoy!”

Draco felt his hand clench round the space where his wand wasn’t before he got a hold of himself. He turned to see the Cannons’ manager, John, with his friendly face poked through the door. Thank Merlin he hadn’t actually drawn his wand like a nutter.

Draco hadn’t been this jumpy in years. Since he’d been finishing his NEWTS by correspondence, to be exact, and had nearly blown up the owl carrying his results.

“The team’s straggling in at long last,” said John. “Not in bright and early like you. Want to come and meet the reprobates?”

“Of course,” Draco said, wearing a smile as false as John’s dark hair.

“Dunno how much you’ll see of each other,” John said, leading Draco through dank-smelling corridors. The stadium was a warren. “Shereen retired at the end of last season, you’ll have heard, so that’ll halve our injury count like that.”

Draco chuckled politely. He doubted the new first-string Beater was any better.

“But I want you to meet all the players. You need to trust each other, especially the starting seven. Can’t meet a man for the first time as he’s stitching up your skull,” John chortled. After a moment Draco gave an echoing chuckle.

John halted in the concrete corridor out onto the ground. They were close enough to hear the players’ laughter in the distance. “Ah, I should possibly have mentioned,” he said. “Now, I don’t want any trouble, Malfoy, you’re a steal at twice the price.”

_Nice of you to say so,_ Draco thought dully, _now the contract’s signed._

“And I can see how there might be… friction. But this is the best buy the team’s made in years, for all he’s a bit older than the pros usually start, so I really can’t have trouble.”

Draco hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.

“He’s not going to cause any problems for you, I’m sure. Good boy, that one. Besides -- ”

Draco could barely hear him. The susurration of the players’ voices had captured his attention, itching at his memory. There was a particular voice there, a cadence and a tone that was familiar; even this far-off wisp of it was recognisable to Draco’s ears. But - it couldn’t be. Even Draco’s karma surely wasn’t bad enough for this to be inflicted on him -

He only knew he was moving when he felt sunlight hit his face. Draco flinched, straining to adjust to the brightness, and when the dazzle faded away he was looking at Harry Potter. Tall and handsome, hair ruffled further by flight and green eyes alight and body wrapped in the hideously orange uniform of the Cannons.

_Here._ A professional Quidditch player. And Draco was here to mind his alcohol intake.

What the hell had happened to being an Auror?

Potter stared back at him. Draco told himself, very firmly, not to retch.

“Harry!” At John’s voice, Potter looked away, releasing Draco from the intensity of his bright gaze. Draco blew out a breath.

Letting himself collapse on the grass wasn’t an option, either.

“So, this is our new Healer!” John said, putting a friendly arm round Potter’s shoulders. Draco belatedly noticed the other six players as they formed a semi-circle round him. No one came quite close enough to touch. “Very good Healer, newly qualified but really, top of his class…”

John trailed off. The players stared. None of them spoke, and Draco decided he wasn’t going to break the silence. Let them brave the awkwardness, the tossers, it was _his_ first day here. Draco had sat through afternoon tea with the Dark Lord, he wasn’t going to be broken by this.

A squirrel chirruped nearby.

“Malfoy!” Potter said. He wriggled free of John’s restraining arm. “Unexpected to see you! But nice, I mean. It’s my first day too!” He put out his hand. “We can be newbies together. Just like, erm, the old days.” Potter blinked behind his glasses and looked very much like he wished the ground would swallow him up.

Draco glanced down at the proffered hand and was assaulted by a memory of the ‘the old days’ that he hadn’t thought about in years. He’d spend all of his first feast at Hogwarts telling Vince and Greg that he didn’t _care_ what Harry Potter thought, that he heard he’d been raised by _Muggles_ , and he didn’t want to be friends with Potter _anyway_...

But that had been a different world.

Draco took Potter’s hand and shook it. Potter was wearing his Quidditch gloves. Draco was grateful; the idea of skin-to-skin contact with Potter, unmediated by leather or a fistfight’s rage, was oddly unnerving.

“Thanks, Potter.”

Potter nodded back and moved out of the way. He and Draco let out twin sighs of relief. At the sound, Draco held his neck as stiff as a crane’s. He would not risk making eye contact.

“I’m Jill Wright,” said one of the Chasers, and Draco shook her hand gratefully.

He was able to escape back to his office - well, ‘office’ was stretching it - his work area soon enough. Not, though, without another comment from the manager about not causing trouble.

“Believe me, I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime,” Draco replied. He planned to avoid Potter as hard as he possibly could. Surely Potter would return the favour. If they were both lucky, they’d never exchange another word in their lives.

***

No one seemed much interested in exchanging words with him, as Draco realised soon enough. The admin staff were largely much older than the players, as well as Draco himself, and were mostly sociable with each other. That was fine: he spent his first two weeks buzzing with a continual low-grade panic that he was about to be fired. He wrote long letters to Greg (and got short letters back, but even short letters were difficult for Greg so he appreciated the effort) about how unfair it was. Potter was meant to be an _Auror_ , he’d done all the training, and now he’d apparently quit just in time to wreck Draco’s shot, his one chance at showing he could do this right. _Bastard_.

This last had been underlined three times, so hard that Draco’s quill had broken and a small blotch of ink had overwhelmed the D.

The girl who did the upkeep on the grounds seemed prepared to be friendly, and invited him to eat his sandwiches with the rest one day.

Draco asked their names, refusing to be embarrassed that this was his third week and he didn’t know. Worrying about whether he was going to be fired while learning where the quills were kept hadn’t left him with much energy. Besides, what was the point of being pureblood if it didn’t give you the ability to fake comfort and confidence in any situation?

“Nice to meet you properly,” said Darius, John’s secretary. “How’re you finding it?”

“Good so far,” Draco said, trotting out his brightest smile. “And John’s a lovely chap. I can’t imagine working so closely with him all the time, though; the enthusiasm must be exhausting.” Draco slid into his best impression of John’s cheery bluster. “This memo is going to take us all the way to the top of the league! I can feel it. So much potential. And this sandwich! Next year it’ll be holding the Cup aloft!”

Darius stared at him stone-faced. So did everyone else.

Draco tried going quiet and letting others carry the conversation. He didn’t have to be the centre of attention. 

The conversation drifted to their new star player, because that was fucking inevitable, and Draco concentrated on chewing every mouthful twenty times before he swallowed it. The urge to slide into charming people, coaxing a smile out of Joanne the groundskeeper, was hard to control. He’d always just automatically tried to make people laugh, and at Hogwarts, it had always worked. It had even worked during Healers’ training, at least until the foreign students heard who he was. 

Maybe he could let himself say one of the smart remarks that came to him. One dead room was no reason to give up on jokes entirely. 

“I was a bit sceptical at first - about whether he had the passion for it, or was just looking for a way to be a diva surrounded by fans. But Harry seems very sweet and humble,” said Almas, the team’s massage therapist.

“John says he bleeds Chudley Cannons orange,” Darius put in.

“Some people say that’s a sign of a fungal infestation, but that’s just a nasty rumour,” said Draco. No one laughed.

He’d been joking. He was _sure_ it had been clear in his expression that he was joking.

Joanne kept giving him friendly nods and chatting in the corridors, but she didn’t ask him back to have lunch with everyone.

Draco spent his lunches writing letters to Greg - he’d moved overseas after the war, away from all of it. He wrote to his mother, because it was a habit after Hogwarts and he worried that she was lonely, and to Pansy and Blaise. When he could make himself do it he wrote letters to his father.

Every time Draco wrote one he told himself angrily that he should do it more, but it meant facing a cold wash of cruel reality every time he wrote _Azkaban_ in the left corner of the parchment.

The weekend after the attempt at lunch with his colleagues, Draco made dinner for Pansy. He told her the joke about fungal infection (except he made it an STD for her benefit, and threw in a pun about the Boy Who Scored) and she cackled so loudly that Draco’s cat Viviane scarpered to Draco’s bedroom.

Viviane had always hated Pansy though. Draco’s cat was prickly and hard to please, which Draco loved, because it made him special. Even Draco’s mother, who regularly brought Viviane expensive fish, wasn’t guaranteed a welcome free of claws. But Viviane would settle down on top of Draco while he worked his way through a medical textbook or a trashy novel about Aurors who had a lot of sex, and her purr would vibrate happiness down into his bones.

***

The Quidditch season had properly begun now, and the Cannons saw their first game. (They lost, but only by sixty-odd points, so that was something.) Draco watched the game from a few seats behind John. He spent the first half constantly tense, waiting for an emergency. He imagined saving a player’s life and being feted as a hero. He imagined fucking it up with some stupid mistake - he’d never been great under pressure - and being sent to prison for manslaughter, or worse, having to tell his mother he’d been fired.

Eventually that faded a bit, so he could enjoy the last of the match. Draco still loved Quidditch, and it was exciting, to watch professionals dart and soar after the bright spots of colour as they careened across the sky. He felt his thighs clench and his fingers clutch in phantom movements as he watched Potter hunt the Snitch.

Then Potter caught it, of course, and everyone else in the stadium stood up to applaud. Even the Tornados fans were on their feet, but then they were so far ahead on points they could afford to be generous.

The chanting of Potter’s name was a bit excessive, though. And Potter already had his own sodding chant, of course. _Potter, Potter, he beat You-Know-Who! Potter, Potter, now he’s beaten you!_

Draco swallowed bitter jealousy. He didn’t even want to be a Quidditch player, not really, it was just.... Potter had this job Draco had once dreamed of; he had glory and fame. Draco glanced to the side, saw Joanne and Almas screaming, and his stomach clenched. Potter wasn’t just famous, he was _well-liked_.

Draco had never realised how important that was to him until he lost it. He’d never had to worry about it at Hogwarts - not until sixth year, and by then it was a long way down the list. Draco could be charming when he wanted, he could be funny, and he _liked_ being surrounding by giggling crowds, whereas back then Potter had gone round po-faced and had only wanted to be proper friends with his charmed little circle. Well, that was still sort of true, but now his chosen circle had more than two people in it.

Even now Potter didn’t seem to make an effort to charm people, the way Draco always had. He was just sort of nice and polite and people… liked him. 

The whole thing was deeply humiliating; it seemed so pathetic and petty, to want something so much when it seemed so small. To be liked.

He had friends; he had people who loved him. He just wanted....

Draco couldn’t quite hold back a sound of disgust as Potter landed and was swarmed by fans. (Since when had the Chudley Cannons even _had_ that many fans?) Luckily the noise was lost in the cheering.

And infuriatingly, Potter wasn’t charming with the fans, either. He was so awkward Draco could see it from the stands - his awkwardness was probably visible from _space_. He escaped as soon as possible and ran off with Ron Weasley, who was wearing so many layers of Cannon merchandise that he looked like an orange Yeti.

Draco went home to his cat and sulked.

Never mind. At least after the first few weeks with no noise from Potter, Draco could exhale. 

**October**

During Potter’s third professional game, he got injured. Draco ran onto the pitch and checked him out in a haze that was only briefly broken by flashes of panic or relief: thumping to his knees next to Potter in the churned-up grass, casting spell after spell in the diagnostic roster with the smoothness of neurotic hours of practice, touching Potter’s arm to steady it and accidentally meeting a pair of wary green eyes. 

Potter was fine. It had been a minor sprain. Draco reported this to John and the man’s knees visibly buckled with relief. Draco, being a pureblood and his mother’s son, waited until he was back in his workroom before he allowed his knees to do the same.

It was minor and Draco hadn’t cocked it up and he’d got through the interaction with Potter without a hitch. Mission accomplished.

Potter appeared in Draco’s doorway on Monday, saying John had sent him to get a final check-up before he rejoined practice. “Just to make sure I’m all in good working order.” Draco bit down forcibly on the urge to say _let’s not hope for miracles, Potter_ , and even more forcibly on the part of himself noting that Potter looked to be in very good working order indeed, the _bastard_. He opened his mouth and said, “of course. Jump up on the chair, please, while I cast a couple of spells,” in the most colourless tone possible.

And he’d even said _please_. Draco was going to buy an enormous bottle of Firewhiskey on the way home and have himself a party.

Potter obeyed silently, which was nice if unexpected, and held out his arm. His muscled forearm was visibly tense as Draco ran through the list of spells.

“Nearly done, Potter,” Draco told him.

“Oh. Great,” Potter said. “So you’re not going to kill me and chop me up for potions?” He gave an awkward laugh after his not-really-a-joke.

Draco didn’t look at him as he said, “Snape resisted for six years, I’m sure I can resist for five minutes.”

Potter’s laugh sounded more like a laugh this time. Draco resisted the automatic urge to chuckle along.

After a few moments of silence, Potter said, “who’d have ever thought I’d be letting you point your wand at me.” The tension was still there in his voice, in his muscles.

Draco was honestly a little offended by the slur on his professional ethics. But if he got all huffy-puffy-chest about the oath he’d taken, Potter would laugh at him, and he’d deserve it. So instead Draco finished his casting, keeping his focus on it so he’d do the thing properly; there wasn’t room for mistakes in Healing. He went and got Potter’s clearance to return to practice, and signed it before handing it to Potter for him to sign too.

Potter stayed quiet, waiting for Draco’s answer. Draco wouldn’t have credited him with the patience.

“It’s strange for me as well,” he said finally. “I didn’t really want to ever see you again. But I’m your Healer. While you’re in this room, you can always trust me.”

Potter looked up, startled, and Draco was caught in his green gaze. Potter held his eyes, and Draco wondered what Potter was seeing, that he was looking at Draco so intensely.

Something close to shame squirmed in his stomach. Potter had seen him clearly back in sixth year, had known him for the threat. Maybe now -

Potter smiled wryly. “What about outside of this room?”

“Oh, all bets are off.”

“What about on the field?”

“Depends if you’re injured.”

“Okay, that seems fair. See you around, Malfoy.”

The room seemed quieter after Potter was gone than it had before he’d been there. Potter wasn’t even very loud, he just… had a lot of personality.

“I suppose I will, Potter,” Draco said to the empty room.

***

Somewhere in the back of his mind Draco had known that Ginny Weasley was a Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, but he hadn’t really taken it in until the Harpies played the Cannons. The Cannons were demolished as per usual, and then Weasley with her scarlet ponytail and Potter in his orange robes landed together and embraced, in a sweet and horribly clashing display of affection.

Of course Potter could remain friends with his exes. The closest Draco had ever managed to that was Pansy letting Blaise fix it after he told her he couldn’t be with her because he was too busy and she hexed him into oblivion. It had been true, really; he’d been busy trying to kill Dumbledore and bring victory to the Dark Lord, and even busier with the slow nervous breakdown that came with the knowledge that he didn’t actually want either of those things. He could admit he hadn’t explained that well.

She’d hexed him worse when she’d caught him getting a blowjob from a sixth-year-boy and he’d made a complete hash of trying to explain bisexuality. Draco still maintained this had been unfair, but he had to admit it had been good limbering up for when he’d told his parents.

That was one thing the war was good for; it tended to sharply interrupt freezing silences and make your parents focus on how much they loved you and didn’t want you to be skinned by a Dark Lord on a tear. They were more or less okay with it now.

Draco belatedly realised that Potter and Weasley were coming towards _him_ , where he was skulking in a corner, and not going towards either of the team tunnels. Contrary idiots. He looked around furtively. There had to be somewhere he could escape to without it looking like he was panicking. It was a Quidditch stadium, it hadn’t exactly been designed with escapees in mind.

“Malfoy!”

Ginny Weasley was hailing him. Draco gave in to naked panic and attempted to scramble over his chair towards the back of the stands, but it was already too late.

“Me and Harry are going to the pub to drink to my team’s glorious victory. D’you wanna come?”

Draco looked from Weasley to Potter and back again.

“Go on,” Potter said, giving him a slightly strained smile. “It’ll be fun.”

He wasn’t going to alienate Potter again over something this stupid. _Don’t make trouble_ , John had said, and he could manage for the length of one beer.

“Why not?”

“Great,” she said, giving him a blinding smile. “See you there.” She Apparated.

Draco turned to Potter. “Where are we…?”

Potter took hold of Draco’s elbow. His fingers were warm even through Draco’s robes, and Draco flinched from the shock of the contact. Potter kept his grip, though, adjusting to Draco’s movement. “The Ball and Bludger. I’ll take you.”

The next moment Draco felt the squeeze of Apparition, and he found himself in front of a run-down pub. Potter was still holding his elbow.

“Thanks, Potter,” he said. He started to draw himself out of Potter’s grip and Potter let go hurriedly.

“I’m sure Ginny’s already inside.”

She was. She pushed two pints over the table towards them as they sat down. Potter was next to Draco, his knee brushing against Draco’s briefly. It was the strangest thing Draco had ever felt, and Draco was one of the brave thirty students who had taken an OWL in Care of Magical Creatures under Hagrid.

“Thanks, Weasley.”

She snorted. “Call me Ginny. Aren’t girls usually ‘Miss’ anyway? You sound like the worst sort of pureblood, calling everyone by their last name.”

“I _am_ the worst sort of pureblood. I’m proud that I manage to call my best friend by his first name.”

She laughed and Draco felt a faint stab of pride. “Did it take long?”

“Years, but I can learn.”

“Fingers crossed,” said Ginny, one eyebrow raised, and Draco’s mouth fell shut and he hid his face in his pint, abruptly running out of bravery.

It didn’t seem to matter. Potter and Ginny fell into pro-Quidditch talk, discussing prospects for the season, transfers and lucky streaks and who was working out. Draco said nothing, instead taking in the pub. Judging by the name, and the way no one came up to either Potter or Ginny for autographs, this was a pro Quidditch watering hole.

Potter leant towards Ginny, his eyes bright. She leant towards him too, mirroring him, her hands raking her vivid hair into a mess to rival his. They were passionate and knowledgeable, they were rising stars, and he was just the team Healer -- no kind of comet. Draco felt himself hardening and shrinking in on himself like an aging conker as they spoke. He’d rarely felt so out of place. He sipped his way slowly through his pint, and drew patterns on the table in spilled beer while they debated defensive formations and Chaser-Beater combination plays.

Potter excused himself to the loo, and Draco took the quiet moment to ask why Ginny had invited him.

Ginny shrugged, draining the last of her pint. “I thought it might be funny.”

“Oh,” Draco said, and left as soon as he could.

***

Hallowe’en was a Saturday that year. The Cannons played an away game against the Montrose Magpies, and afterwards everyone was heading off to the pub, apparently.

Draco looked for a fireplace. The journey up had been via Portkey, and he wasn’t in the mood to Apparate.

“Malfoy. Do you wanna come to the pub?”

Draco turned, incredulous, to find a newly-showered Potter standing behind him. Water was still running down his neck from his black hair.

“I have to go.”

“Come on,” Potter said. “Really. I don’t want you to think you can’t…” He trailed off. “Anyway, it’s Hallowe’en!”

Draco frowned. He’d never really liked Hallowe’en. Celebrating it with feasts and loud toasts was something the Muggleborn had imported, and his parents despised it.

He supposed he should try to like it now. New world, new man, all that.

“All right.”

“Great!” Potter said. He was glowing with energy left over from flight. “I’ll Side-Along us, then?”

Draco nodded and held out his arm. Potter’s warm fingers curled round his wrist, skin to skin, and then they were there.

It was a different pub this time; one local to the Magpies, judging by the accents. Draco nabbed himself a Firewhiskey and folded himself onto a stool in a dark corner of the bar. He wasn’t going to risk getting tipsy and attempting to charm anyone tonight; it was too risky, these days. You never knew which crowd of friendly faces contained someone who’d been hurt by Greyback, who’d hidden from Umbridge, who’d seen Draco at the back of a crowd of Death Eaters.

At least he was alive, unlike so many of the Death Eaters’ victims. And free.

Still, Draco wondered for a chilling moment if it would always be like this. What if he had the long life that was possible for a wizard, and it stayed this lonely and ostracised and scared? If he spent the next one hundred and fifty years subsisting on letters from Greg and the odd dinner with Pansy?

Surely not. Joanne and John seemed willing not to hate him, and he worked in Quidditch now. Quidditch’s popularity was soaring post-war, and Draco agreed with the _Prophet_ ’s many editorials on the subject: it was because people wanted to move on, to forget the war. Surely eventually they’d be willing to forget his past too?

“D’you want another?”

Draco looked up at Potter, then down at his own empty glass. “Oh. Thanks.”

Potter ordered another two Firewhiskeys (he was served instantly, of course) and handed one to Draco with a smile. “Cheers.”

Draco clinked his glass against Potter’s, their fingertips briefly catching. Draco wondered when he’d stop being so aware of Potter’s movements, of his body where it overlapped with Draco’s, the space it took up; hopefully that would happen soon. Then he sipped his new drink - this one was a better vintage - and waited for Potter to speak.

What Potter said was, “you’re very quiet.”

Draco blinked at him, unsure what to say, and proved him right by saying nothing.

“Not that it’s a bad thing, or anything. I mean. It’s fine. I’ve just noticed that you seem sort of… subdued.”

Draco scowled. “I’m being professional, Potter, not that you’d know professional if it bit you on the arse.”

Potter laughed ruefully. “Fair enough. I once told one of my Auror trainers that I’d bang her husband like French doors in a hurricane.”

“Potter, you didn’t!” Draco said, delighted. “What did she say?”

“She said she did.” Potter grinned. “To be fair I was pretty drunk. It was the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.”

“Ah,” said Draco, the whiskey going sour in his mouth. “Celebrating your glorious victory.” 

“Not really, no,” said Potter. “It was the anniversary of a lot of my friends dying.”

_Idiot._ This was why Draco had planned not to talk. Shame twisted in his chest. 

So did grief. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. Nothing to lose by honesty now. “I always think of that day as the day Vince died.”

There was a short silence. Draco glared at Potter, because Vince could have killed Potter, and he’d wanted to hand him over to the Dark Lord, and Draco didn’t give a shit. Vince had been his _friend_ and he’d been there because of Draco and if Potter said one solitary word about him Draco would --

“These anniversaries are weird.” Potter sat down in the barstool next to Draco’s. Watching his movements, Draco realised Potter was a bit drunk. No doubt that was how he’d ended up talking to Draco in the first place. “Take tonight. Good things have happened to me on Hallowe’en - it’s the night I became friends with Hermione, properly I mean, back in first year - but it’s also the night my parents were murdered. The night Sirius ended up in prison.”

Draco made a vague mumble. 

“And it’s… I mean I never knew when my parents died, exactly. My aunt and uncle didn’t talk about them when I was growing up. So it’s not a big thing for me exactly… it just always seems a bit strange, celebrating.”

Draco didn’t know what to say, so he grasped for a question. Potter seemed in the mood to talk. “Why didn’t your Muggle family talk about your parents?”

Potter’s smile turned twisted. “They didn’t like them much.”

There was so much hidden in those few words, so much lurking behind that smile and in Potter’s hooded green eyes, that Draco abruptly felt breathless. Potter had to be properly pissed if he was saying this. 

Shit. Those jokes about Potter not having any real family had perhaps not been very funny.

Draco, not for the first time, was possessed by the urge to find a Time-Turner and tell his younger self off for being such a twit.

“Er,” Draco said desperately. “Good game, by the way.”

Potter’s gaze eased off a bit, thankfully; Draco no longer felt pinned to his seat by emerald-green intensity. “Thanks. I think I’m getting better.”

“You are. Obviously you’ll never come close to topping the glory that was beating _me_...”

Potter threw back his head and laughed, gloriously, deep and long. “You know that’s probably true? Beating you for the Cup by inches, back in third year? It’s still one of my best memories.”

“Because your life is depressing, Potter.”

“You should talk.” Potter winced. “Er, sorry. That was meant to be banter.”

“Don’t worry,” Draco said. “I’m becoming less jealous of you by the minute, because your life actually _has_ been depressing.”

At this point Draco discovered his glass was empty, which was probably why he’d said that last thing.

“Another?”

Draco shook his head. “I’ll get the next round.”

They toasted each other again. Potter fiddled with his drink, spinning it between his palms. 

“I just wanted to let you know… I know things were awkward the other week at the pub, but you don’t have to be scared of me.”

Draco’s fourteen-year-old self wanted to yelp _I’m NOT scared of you_ but he limited himself to an interrogative hum.

“Just. I know it can’t be have been good to see me there, that first day.”

“I imagine you get enough in the way of welcome parades,” Draco drawled.

Potter made an irritated motion, as if brushing away a fly. “I mean you must’ve known I wasn’t especially pleased to see you, either, and the team needs me more. And I don’t know… how things are, with everyone. But. I remember everyone hating me, everyone viewing me with suspicion. It wasn’t fun.”

It stung to have Draco’s vulnerability so easily spotted by his old rival, so easily discussed. He said nothing.

“So I wanted you to know that you don’t have to worry about me. I became a Quidditch player so I wouldn’t have to think about the war all the time or always be viewing the world with suspicion. I’m not giving up that chance just because you’re here.”

The silence lengthened. “Fair enough,” Draco said, in lieu of anything else to say. 

“Of course your situation isn’t quite like mine was. I never actually _was_ the Heir of Slytherin, or mad.”

Potter’s tone was mild; but Draco went still, feeling like he’d been wounded, and he had to move very carefully to avoid pain. He reached for sarcasm. “You absolutely were mad, Potter. I played Quidditch against you, I saw the crazy eyes.”

Potter’s laugh rang out again. “Probably.” He glanced at Draco and seemed to take in Draco’s carefully lighthearted expression.

“I get it, you know,” he said in an undertone. “Well. Not really, but I do understand doing crazy things to protect people you love from Voldemort. I would’ve killed Snape if he’d let me, after I saw him kill Dumbledore.”

“Not really the same,” Draco said, and prayed someone would interrupt them before they had to talk any more about either Snape or Dumbledore. This was exactly why he’d tried to avoid talking to Potter.

Well, not really, because he hadn’t seen this conversation coming at all. But it was why he rarely got drunk with Pansy any more.

Thankfully at this juncture, as had happened to so many wizards before him, Draco’s conversation was interrupted by the loud voice of a Weasley.

Ginny stampeded over like she was at the head of an invading army. She stood on Draco’s other side, pounding on the bar for a drink and talking to Potter over Draco’s head about Neville Longbottom’s enormous cock.

She had possibly been drinking already.

Draco sat between them for a little while, drinking more whiskey and enjoyably prying some top gossip out of their conversation, before he returned home and poured himself into bed. Viviane slept on his feet, sure protection against any possible ghosts.

**November**

Draco’s November began with a photo of himself, Ginny Weasley, and Harry Potter on the front page of the _Prophet_ under the headline _Potter-Weasley pair take walk on the wild side_.

Fabulous.

Pansy Floo’d about twenty minutes after Draco had finished breakfast. (Throwing his toast at the wall counted as finishing, surely. He certainly wasn’t going to eat it now.) He heard his fire flare and then Pansy’s voice carolling, “I’m looking for the filling in a villainous sandwich!”

“Shut up, Parkinson!”

“Don’t call me that, my sources tell me you’re calling _Ginny fucking Weasley_ by her first name.”

Draco crouched in front of his fireplace. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

She made a face at him. “I am mistress of clandestine whisperings and secrets travelling in the winds. Also I do some business with Neville Longbottom.”

“Right.”

“It amazes me that boy ever stood up to interrogation by the Carrows, he crumples like wet cardboard when I nudge him about what’s going on.”

“Neither of the Carrows had your decolletage, my dear,” Draco drawled in his best imitation of his mother. 

Pansy laughed. “True. Plus I’m nice to him. His heroic Gryffindor powers are very weak in the face of nice.”

“Congratulations on weaponising decency, Pansy. Is there a reason you’re calling?”

“The _Prophet_ ’s thinly-veiled suggestion you’re in a threesome with Potter and Ginny Weasley isn’t reason enough?”

“It’s not veiled at all. There’s barely a merkin over the suggestion. And you should sodding know I’m not fucking either of them.”

“I do know that,” she said. “But the photo did catch you giving Potter a very specific look. Not lust!” she said at his expression. “Or not exactly. Just… focus. And given that the last time you got obsessed with Potter I spent five years listening to you explain in great detail why he was the worst human who ever lived, I think I deserve some honesty. So?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Honestly.” He paused while Pansy gave him a look that said she had thumbscrews and wasn’t afraid to use them. “He said I didn’t have to be afraid of him.”

“Hmm. Leaving some empty emotional space. Whatever shall you fill it up with?”

“Oh Pansy, leave it alone. Can you imagine me actually getting something together with Potter?”

“I have a very vivid imagination, as it happens.” She gave him a dirty grin. “But it doesn’t seem terribly likely, no. Did you see the quote from him?”

“Yeah.” _Malfoy’s a capable Healer and we’re getting on better these days._ Draco didn’t want to think about how happiness had sparked in his chest at that first phrase, the idea that Potter thought he could do this, could be this. “D’you want to come through? I can’t have any more of this conversation on my knees and I want to hear how you’re doing. Are the Aurors still sweeping the shop?”

“Every minute they get,” Pansy said, clambering out of his fireplace, “but it’s really hard to pull up an apothecary on possession of dangerous substances. Besides…”

Draco didn’t get another look at the _Prophet_ until Pansy left, around lunchtime. He pored over it as he munched scrambled eggs on toast, taking in every sordid insinuation, every needless reminder of his stained past.

Prisoners didn’t have access to newspapers in Azkaban. But his _mother_ was going to read this. _Potter is generally wary of letting people into his ‘personal space’, and one might not expect to see him extend such trust to a man who used Unforgivables. But perhaps he’s more friendly with Malfoy than one might think, given their long history of passionate competition as Seekers. Miss Weasley has played the Seeker position herself, of course, as did Cho Chang, Potter’s first romance._

And _this_ was the wizarding world’s excuse for quality journalism. The mind boggled.

Draco spent the rest of the day avoiding his mother’s Floo calls. 

Maybe he could move to Bulgaria with Greg. He was sure they needed sports Healers there. Quidditch was practically the national religion.

Sodding Quidditch.

***

On the Monday, Draco was late for the first time at this job. The article had unleashed a deluge of poison pen letters from witches and wizards who wanted to make very sure that Draco knew he was but Droobles’ Best Blowing Gum on the sole of Harry Potter’s shoes. Someone had sent a venomous gift along too, and Draco had nearly missed the tell-tale smell of the toxic pixie dust in his early-morning blur. 

Worse, his colleagues were sure to tease him about the article, with accompanying cheap shots about his sexuality. And Draco would have to laugh along and not take it seriously, since he didn’t have anything like the social capital to make them shut up.

He was still hurriedly getting set up, everything in place in case of an injury during practice, when Potter arrived.

Brilliant. Draco eyed Potter carefully, gauging whether he was about to be shouted at. Potter didn’t look angry. He had his hands jammed in his Muggle jeans -- he wasn’t changed for practice yet, he must have been late too -- and his dark eyelashes were flickering nervously over the brilliant green of his eyes.

“Er. Read anything interesting lately?”

“Yes, Potter, I saw it,” Draco said, turning back to his black bag. He hid his face in it, rummaging about, hoping Potter would take the hint and go away. He couldn’t imagine what he was meant to say. _Oh, how amusing! Our national newspaper thinks we’re fucking!_

“Well, don’t worry about it too much,” said Potter, sounding faintly amused. “Your reputation for virility just went through the roof. I’m a Quidditch player and you know what they say about us, and keeping up with Ginny alone…”

“Did you want that to happen then?” Draco snapped, raising his eyes to level a razor glare. “Or did she? Only thing funnier than inviting Malfoy to the pub is seeing what happens when everyone thinks he’s in bed with us?”

“Come off it, Malfoy. Ginny feels bad that she said that, she knows it hurt your feelings -- ”

Sharp humiliation stung Draco’s cheeks, making him more irritated than ever.

“ -- but you can’t act like we did this. The _Prophet_ prints whatever sells, you know that.”

“I do know that,” Draco snapped. He repeated it, trying to calm himself down. “I do know that. I just -- you must’ve seen the journalist, there’s a quote from you in there. Why didn’t you ask what he was going to write? He asked you about me, didn’t he?”

“I thought he was writing about you and me, I just didn’t think it was that important. I’m trying not to read any of that stuff, it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it sodding matters!” Draco said, his attempted calm evaporating. “Maybe not for you, golden boy, but for me and my family -- for my mother -- reputation is everything, you’ve probably royally screwed us over - ”

“I actually think I’ve been monumentally generous to you and your sainted bloody mother, given everything.” 

“Oh, was I not appreciative enough?” Draco sneered, feeling his face fall into familiar lines of scorn. “Allow me to bow before you, oh munificent one.”

“Oh shut up.” Potter sounded exasperated rather than angry, making Draco angrier still; he wanted Potter pissed off, to make him take this as seriously as Draco did. “I don’t need this, I’ve gone out of my way to be decent to you -- ” 

“Fuck off,” Draco snarled. “You think I wanted your magnanimous forgiveness, as if you could forgive any of what I did, as if you had the right -- ”

“It wasn’t about forgiveness, I’m just -- ” Potter’s hands curled into fists at his side, and Draco was leaning forward, his weight shifting as if ready for a fight. Their bodies were sliding back into old grooves as they faced each other. 

“Just what? Not bothered? Because you can afford to not be bothered if you’re _you_ , if everyone loves you anyway, if you _won_. The gracious victor being kind, and you can just close your eyes while I get spat on -- ”

“It’s not as if you did nothing to deserve it.” Potter had lost his temper. “You whine and bitch and moan, oh they’re so mean to you, like you’ve done nothing to deserve it, like the whole wizarding world wouldn’t be quite justified ignoring you til you moved to sodding Siberia. Oh people send you nasty letters, when you cast Unforgivables and brought Death Eaters into Hogwarts, when you wear his _fucking Mark_ \-- ” He reached forward, as if he was going to grab Draco’s forearm, make him reveal the scar. Draco jerked backwards out of range, knocking a stool flying.

The clatter as it hit the ground brought them both back to earth. Dimly, Draco was embarrassed; getting into a shouting match with Harry Potter was meant to be something he’d left behind with late homework and snowball fights. But the emotion barely registered behind the flood of anger -- at Potter, at the world, at himself -- and shame. 

Potter jerked back himself at Draco’s flinch, and guilt crossed his face. “Well, it’s true anyway,” Potter muttered before storming away.

It was. It was true, Draco knew. He was still alive to feel slighted if people were cruel to him; not everyone had been so lucky. He bore the Mark, he’d cast those curses, he’d been the one to bring Hogwarts’ defences and its headmaster crashing down. There was a reason people didn’t want him around vulnerable patients, didn’t want him around at all. Draco didn’t like being around former Death Eaters either, except his father.

It was hardly unfair.

Draco went over his supplies, looking for what needed replenishing or replacing. Usually he found inventory soothing if dull: the smell of aging Mugwort, the feel of glass vials under his fingertips, the methodical filling of a bit of parchment meant he was doing something that he wasn’t going to cock up, and no one was going to interrupt him for a while.

During his training Draco had often volunteered to do inventory; partly it was a fruitless attempt to curry favour, and partly it was because the other students would avoid him while he worked, for fear of being asked to help. He supposed it was also because it reminded him of Snape in some ways. Snape who had tried to defend him, even if saving the world and Potter had mattered more in the end; Snape who had been despised, and survived.

But Snape had been working for Dumbledore. For almost all of it, anyhow, Draco was pretty sure. Not like him.

Words from the morning’s letters echoed in his ears; dimmer echoes from other letters, from the Howler the day he’d officially graduated, repeated in his ears. _...Think you can be friends with Harry Potter, who was willing to die to save the rest. I’m not worried; he knows what you are. The blackness in your soul, on your arm._

_Killer, murderer, torturer._

_You were happy to cast the Cruciatus if you could save yourself that way._

_You tried poison, like a coward, and someday someone’s going to poison you like the rat you are ---_

Draco came back to himself as a vial of Potnia honey smashed on the floor, splashing his legs. He swore and dropped to his knees, casting a spell to Vanish the glass. His hand shook, throwing off the movement of his wand, and the glass turned green instead.

Lucky that was all that had happened. Draco stayed huddled on the stone amidst the shards, feeling the shakes work their way out of him, for a long time before he tried again.


	2. Chapter 2

Potter came back the next day. Draco hid in the supply cupboard until he went away. It wasn’t dignified, and some part of Draco was achingly aware of how his fourteen-year-old self would hate him now. But this wasn’t a moment for dignity. This was like wartime: a time to keep his head down and keep moving. Embarrassment was the reward you got for surviving everything else in order to feel it.

The letters were still coming. Not as many as that first day, and Draco hadn’t been caught off guard by anything dangerous again. But on Wednesday three Howlers arrived at once, and Draco ended up cowering while the scarlet letters circled him, screeching out his shame. He arrived at work with a headache he thought was probably from the shouting, though he hadn’t slept very well either.

On Thursday night he woke with a cry from a nightmare about casting the Imperius on Madam Rosmerta, watching her eyes glaze over. In the dream Greyback was there, and his aunt, and they told him he’d done well and their eyes gleamed and they came towards him --

Viviane landed on his heaving chest, heavy and soft and soundless. Draco huffed out a breath, throwing his head back against the pillow and closing his eyes. Even with his eyes closed, he reached for Viviane’s small head and found it, tickling her behind her ears. After a minute of her standing on him while he stroked her, both of them tense, Draco felt his body begin to relax. Viviane celebrated this by kneading his chest through his pyjamas. Draco gave a yowl to rival a cat’s himself, and lifted Viviane off to the side.

She gave him an offended yellow glare and turned away. He kept stroking her and after a minute she curled up against him, a solid, purring, living weight against him.

“Thanks, Viviane.”

Her purring grew a bit louder at that. She really was the best familiar a wizard could ask for.

They fell asleep together.

Draco spent the next two days flinching every time he heard footsteps in the corridor outside his room, but Potter didn’t come back. Draco managed to avoid speaking to him; even when he spoke to the team about best-practice for stretches, he avoided Potter’s eyes, and Potter didn’t seem interested in pushing it.

It didn’t matter; what he’d said rattled around in Draco’s brain. He felt pursued -- worse, captured -- by what Potter had said.

Potter’s words had all been true, all been fair. _You whine and bitch and moan… like you’ve done nothing to deserve it… you wear his fucking Mark._ The words chased him; in the shower the second morning, scrubbing at his left arm without looking at it, they sent Draco into a shamed reverie that lasted until the water ran cold.

It wasn’t just what Potter had said. There were things Potter hadn’t said, surely; their argument had been cut off by Draco’s knocking over that stool, in the stupid, blind fear that Potter would reveal his Mark. As if Potter didn’t already know it was there; as if he wouldn’t sense that taint under Draco’s clothes even if he hadn’t. Draco had heard that Potter had been able to feel the Dark Lord’s presence from afar, even as a child; his scar had hurt in the presence of Professor Quirrell. Occasionally he worried that whatever sixth sense Potter had for the Dark Lord’s presence might tingle at the existence of the white scar that had been Draco’s Mark. 

The poison pen letters from strangers trailed off, but they stayed in his mind, tangling with his imaginings of what Potter would’ve said if Draco hadn’t knocked over the stool. Everything Potter had said was fair. Did that mean all the letters were true as well?

_Torturer!_

_Poison you like the rat you are._

_Happy to cast the Cruciatus if you could save yourself..._

Draco shook his head, sick of himself and his own self-pity. It was humiliating, how he was wallowing in this. Just like Potter had said: _whine and bitch and moan_ -

No. He needed to stop. He was sleeping badly and distracted at work by trying to hide from Potter. It was ridiculous. Draco needed to pull himself together or he’d make a real mistake at work, and he couldn’t afford that.

He tightened his grip on his wand, swallowing, at the thought of players’ lives in his hands.

He had to stop being pathetic. 

Yet when five o’clock came on the third day, something in Draco’s chest loosened and he hurried for the Floo. He was too relieved to be irritated with himself; soon he’d be alone, no one but Viviane there to bother him or see him. He was going to have a nap, and read, and share some tuna steak with Viviane with no one there to roll their eyes at the way he spoilt his cat. The jagged sense of threat he’d had all day was fading.

Yet the spiral chased him into sleep: he jerked awake from his attempted nap, hearing again the cries of his mother after Potter had escaped the Manor. Of the Death Eaters he himself had tortured at other times.

He raked his hands down his face and sighed.

***

There was a game on Sunday, but Draco had Friday and Saturday to himself. He hadn’t had big plans; he’d thought he might experiment with a new potion that could be a base for making his own aftershave, and finish his current book. He definitely hadn’t expected to leave the house to go food shopping and find Potter sitting on the garden wall, making friends with his cat.

Draco didn’t recognise him at first, so out of context was he; he saw a tall man with messy black hair, tickling behind Viviane’s ears. Then a shift in angle and Draco froze, bewildered; he felt obscurely that Potter had cheated, somehow. Potter had come to his _home_. Why?

He heard Viviane meow happily and narrowed his eyes, walking close enough to loom a bit. Potter jerked in surprise. “Malfoy! Er, hello, I was - I was just coming to see you. Got distracted by the cat.” Potter smiled ruefully and didn’t take his filthy hands off _Draco’s_ cat.

“She likes everyone,” Draco lied, and gave her a glare for being a traitor. Even so, he couldn’t help noting Potter’s gentle brown hands stroking Viviane’s fur. Her eyes were slit shut with bliss. For a moment warmth outpaced the jealousy.

“She’s nice,” said Potter. “What’s her name?”

“Viviane.”

“Elegant,” Potter said. “Huh. Suits her - she’s elegant too. I s’pose you’re not really the tubby-tabby type.”

“She’s a mongrel though,” Draco said, a little sharply. “I got her from a shelter.” He felt slightly ridiculous, but he wanted Potter to know that he hadn’t got a pureblood cat.

“Nice,” Potter said, sounding a little nonplussed. He stood up, letting his hand fall away from Viviane, and she gave a low warble of complaint. “Listen, I’ve been meaning to talk to you all week. I thought I should do it today, before we’re out on the field on Sunday.”

_We?_ Draco thought snidely, but he managed to claw it back. Instead, he nodded stiffly.

“About this week…” Potter trailed off. Draco said nothing, refusing to help.

“Look, I shouldn’t have flown off the handle. I know you’ve got a lot more to lose from that kind of coverage than I do. I’m sorry. I do know that.”

Draco was stunned. Not in the sense of ‘shocked’, either; more in the sense of ‘unable to think due to being knocked on the head’. Potter was looking at him anxiously and he deserved a response but Draco couldn’t pull one together.

“Er. I’ll talk to the _Prophet_ again, if you want - tell them off. I don’t think it’s a good idea, to be honest - responding to the rumour would probably just bring it to life again - but it’s up to you.”

Draco felt himself smile, bright and easy, before he’d quite decided he was going to. Potter’s face relaxed and he smiled back. Draco felt a little wrong-footed: _wait, no! I haven’t forgiven you, you just… made me happy, when you…_

“D’you want a cuppa?”

“Yes please,” Potter said immediately.

“So polite,” Draco said, teasing. “My mother’d like you.”

Potter snorted. “I thought getting rid of Voldemort so you stayed alive had done that.”

“Saving my life is one thing, good manners is quite another. That’s how you get into her good books enough that she sends you presents.”

“Then why’d she send them to you?”

Draco grabbed at his chest, mock-wounded, playing up the drama to hide his awkwardness, and Potter laughed. Draco led them back up the garden path, and charitably suppressed his smile when Viviane made Potter trip. 

He led Potter into his sitting room. Potter looked round, and for a moment there was a searing, unbearable intimacy to having him there. Draco rarely had visitors; for the most part, this place was his sanctuary from the world, where he studied and talked out loud to his cat and wrote letters to Greg and made himself cocoa after a nightmare. Not needing to keep up appearances as his parents always had, he’d filled his sitting room with medical textbooks and trashy Auror romances and photos he always forgot to dust properly. Having Potter’s sharp eyes scan the room felt like him seeing parts of Draco that Draco hadn’t meant to reveal.

And Draco was proud that he didn’t take any money from the family estate, but still... the room was small and dim, and the rug was threadbare. Draco knew perfectly well that if Potter poked some fun at him now over that he’d richly deserve it. His throat had a lump in it.

“I like this,” Potter said, dropping onto the sofa. It made a slight, complaining _oof_. “It reminds me of Hermione’s place, actually.”

He was bright-eyed and totally earnest, and it struck Draco again how unfairly handsome he was. Narrow-jawed and smiling, a little tired-looking, with dark scruff on his chin and the edge of collarbone sticking out from under his t-shirt.

Draco mumbled something about tea and fled.

In the kitchen he dropped his head and huffed. _Get a hold of yourself, man._ Draco would never go for that idiot in a million years. He needed to stop being distracted by Potter’s looks. Pansy was always advising him to have a meaningless fling with a hot man and her love life was a disaster.

He brought back the tea tray. Potter’s mouth twitched at the sight of it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Potter said, grinning now. “It’s just - very twee. I didn’t picture you with a set of china.” He picked up the sugar bowl. It spat in his face, and Potter almost dropped it. 

“Let go of me, you ingrate!” the sugar bowl squawled. “I am a proud member of the Black china - ”

“Oh God,” Potter muttered, putting it down. “No. I spent weeks fighting every curtain and pot and portrait in the Black house. Why do you have this?”

“Mother gave it to me, of course,” said Draco. “Don’t look so undone, Potter, I’ll protect you from the nasty tea service. I assume you want milk and sugar?”

“Like the pleb I am?” Potter said, looking very entertained. “Sugar, no milk.”

“There you are. You’ve got sugar in your scruff, Potter. Brush yourself down before you leave -- wouldn’t do for rumours to start swirling that thanks to wicked Malfoy, you’re addicted to hookers and blow.”

“Which one are you?” Potter murmured, then looked stricken. “Er, that was meant to be banter.”

“Don’t worry,” said Draco, rolling his eyes. He could feel his cheeks heat, but he wasn’t going to be flustered by Potter’s bad manners.

It had been sort of funny, anyway.

Potter swiped at the sugar and got most of it off. “Nearly.”

Potter kept wiping haplessly at his chin and Draco gave an annoyed huff of air. “Let me.”

He didn’t move until Potter nodded. He couldn’t quite believe it even as he was leaning over, feeling the black bristles and warm skin under the soft slide of his fingertips. He looked up and caught Potter’s eyes by mistake. For a moment they both froze in place; Draco caught Potter’s soft intake of breath, on the edge of hearing.

Potter looked away and Draco leant back, not quite fast enough to evade the awkwardness.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Draco sipped his tea. Potter did the same.

“So, if the _Prophet_ hacks ask me about who I’m seeing at the game, should I tell them I’m spending Fridays with you?”

“You’d better be fucking kidding, Potter,” Draco said without thinking, feeling his entire body clench. “If you bring those bastards down on my head again - ”

“Sorry, sorry, I was joking! Calm down.” They sat in spiky silence for a moment. “Look, I was just trying to - just stop assuming the worst, all right? I’ve done nothing to make you assume I mean you harm. In fact I’ve done the opposite! Or tried, at the least.”

Draco deflated, knowing this was true. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I suppose I overreacted.” Embarrassed by his lack of emotional control, he reached for every Englishman’s crutch and stared into his tea. This was why he didn’t talk to people much.

“I know it’s not fun being romantically linked to someone just so the press can sell papers,” Potter said. “Especially when you suspect someone’s having a bit of a laugh because they don’t like you.” Potter’s tone was wry, and Draco glanced at him, his mouth quirking.

“Fine,” he admitted. “It’s probably karma for Skeeter. Still, I bet you didn’t get anything dangerous in the post this morning.”

“The Aurors check my post, unless it’s from someone on my trusted list. You got something dangerous?”

“Not really. Pixie venom, but I smelt it before I opened the letter, so I just vanished the thing.”

“Pixie venom’s not too bad. Still, if you’re getting hate mail, you should ask the Aurors - ”

Draco snorted and Potter fell silent. After a moment he tried again. “I know there’s a history, but they’ll help if you’re in danger.”

“I’m not.”

Potter’s mouth tightened and he looked like he wanted very much to argue. But apparently the desire to defuse their relationship was sincere; instead he took a too-large gulp of still very hot tea, made a funny face as he swallowed it, and said, “so, how about them Tornadoes?”

Draco fought a smile. “Potter, you’re a pro Quidditch player. You can’t use ‘how bout them…’ to change the subject.”

“Sure I can. I can talk about this stuff for hours.”

“And do. I remember you in the pub.”

Potter grinned, a little guilty, but there was something else in his face. “Yeah. We didn’t bore you, did we? I… I remember you always talking a lot about Quidditch, but you were really quiet that night.”

Draco shrugged. “People change.”

“Not that much. I bet you’ve still got all your Falcons gear.”

“Hidden away now. Can’t be disloyal to the team.”

“Does that mean you’ll be decking yourself out in Cannons’ orange?” Potter teased. Draco made a face.

Conversation was easy after that; the league, work, whether two of the players were having a torrid affair (Potter knew nothing, and so was useless in corroborating Draco’s theory) and then the Ministry’s attempts to regenerate Hogsmeade after the Battle of Hogwarts blew it to bits and whether Fortescue’s granddaughter had what it took. They eased round the ragged edges the war had left: not quite able to face things directly, but it was surprisingly smooth. And Potter had a wicked sense of humour. Draco had forgotten his gift for sarcasm. And Potter seemed to find him funny too; Draco gloried in turning an amused little huff into a peal of laughter.

They worked their way through the pot, and were still there, debating the Falcons’ chances (Potter had inside knowledge there - the Falcons’ Seeker was pregnant, and the sub was awful, unfortunately) and stout versus lager and the Weird Sisters versus the Sirens. Potter started defending dogs over cats, then burst out laughing in the face of Draco’s wordless outrage and admitted he was a cat person, too.

As well he might be. Dogs were for _Muggles_.

N-not that there was anything wrong with that, Draco told himself firmly. He was going to learn to stop being at all anti-Muggle, he _was_. Dogs might not be associated with magic but then, Viviane had never been much of a familiar. She was just… familiar.

And currently curled up next to Potter’s thigh, purring. Draco was privately a tiny bit jealous.

Draco abruptly realised that while they’d been talking, it had got dark; the room had dimmed without him noticing. He flicked his wand, sending little fireballs to every candle in the room, and a glow appeared. Potter jerked with surprise and checked his watch.

“Oh God, I’m gonna be late. Sorry, Malfoy, I’ve got to go - this has been great, I totally lost track of time, but I’m meant to be having dinner with some friends tonight. Can’t miss it; Luna’s bringing some of her deadliest booze. She makes it herself.”

Draco felt himself flinch the tiniest bit at the mention of Luna Lovegood’s name; he’d apologised to her by letter, and though she’d forgiven him, the last memory he had of her was when she was being held prisoner. And besides, forgiveness for something like that - apologising for it, even - felt somewhat ridiculous. Moving past something like that didn’t seem possible.

But she was doing well, apparently. At least well enough to get her friends artisanally hammered. He grinned.

“Have fun. I’ll let you head off - I didn’t mean to keep you.”

“Oh no, no, I was just - what are you doing?”

Draco took his head out of a cupboard and handed Potter a small indigo bottle with a flourish. “It’s my personal hangover remedy. It’s a rite of passage to develop your own recipe as a Healing student, you know, and mine’s pretty good if I do say so myself.”

Potter glanced down at the bottle then back up at Draco, seeming a little uncertain; for a moment Draco thought he might say no, that he wasn’t taking some unmarked bottle from Draco Malfoy, and his heart seized. Then Potter smiled.

“Thanks, Malfoy, that’s - that’s really nice.”

“You’re welcome,” Draco said, barely aware of what was coming out of his mouth. Potter’s smile was so bright, his eyes were such a deep emerald green, and Draco’s chest was full of rampaging Hippogriffs.

“Can I use your Floo?”

“Go - go ahead.”

And then in a flash of flame Potter was gone. In his wake, Draco collapsed onto the sofa, almost landing on Viviane. She scarpered with a offended yowl, and Draco flopped his arm over his eyes.

“What am I going to do?”

***

Write a letter to Greg, apparently. Greg’s response was not nearly as kind and tender and nurturing as Draco might have wished. On the other hand, Draco lacked options, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell Pansy.

_This is hilarius. Sorry. If you get Potter as your boyfriend, you have to buy me drinks forever. I listened to you complain about him for YEARS and I wouldn’t of done it if I’d known you were just pissed off because you wanted to do him._

_That wasn’t why!_ Draco had written back. _It was because he was OBNOXIOUS. And so was I._

He’d underlined OBNOXIOUS three times, because he might be less obnoxious now but he didn’t have any more dignity.

The game on Sunday was quiet; no fouls, and only one moment where Draco had to use his skills. The player had tired himself out but not damaged anything, so John sent in a sub and the game went on.

Draco lingered a little after the game, fiddling with his black bag. He kept his face down, not wanting to get caught looking.

“Malfoy? D’you - d’you wanna come to the pub with us?”

He looked up to find Potter there, his hair even messier than usual from the wind. Draco opened his mouth to agree, then found his eyes snagged on the little crowd in the middle of the pitch. Other players and their friends. There’d be more of them at the pub. People he didn’t know, who would all know _him_. 

“Er. Not tonight, thanks, Potter.”

“Fair enough,” Potter said. “Especially after last time.”

He looked a little forlorn, though. It made Draco’s chest hurt. Draco had imagined maybe joining Potter tonight, and Potter had come especially to apologise after their argument, and the line of his jaw as he turned away was -

“Wait.”

***

It was the Ball and Bludger again this week. Potter was hailed by people at several tables as he entered. He waved at people, calling greetings, and Draco prepared to be surrounded on all sides by Quidditch players.

He missed playing. Was it embarrassing for a sports Healer to find a pub team? They all played when he was at work anyway, probably. 

Maybe Potter could introduce him to a Falcon or two.

A woman with blue hair that was shaved into stripes on one side of her head called Potter over. He glanced back at Draco, making sure he was following, and made his way to her table. Draco followed, promising himself he wasn’t going to be embarrassing in front of Alison Debba. She was the Harpies’ captain, and England’s current captain too.

“How’s it going, Ali?”

“Not great. Becca came down hard today - two Bludgers hit her, one after the other.”

Draco and Potter winced in unison. “Is she okay?”

“She will be. The Healer said she’ll be out for a few days but she might even be back next week - depends how she responds to the potions.”

They nodded. Draco wanted to ask more specific questions about the player’s injury and prognosis, concern and professional curiosity mixing in his brain. But that would seem callous, so he offered to get a round in. Draco saw Debba’s expression cloud slightly as she took him in, but she nodded. “Cheers. A Goblin Pride, yeah?”

“Same for me,” Potter said.

Draco made his pointy-elbowed way through the small crush round the bar at speed, but predictably it took a while for him to get served. When he came back, Ginny Weasley was at the table with them, along with another Harpies player and a Gryffindor Draco thought had been in the year below them at Hogwarts. Draco handed out the beers and sat next to Potter where he’d made a space.

The mood was dampened by the Harpies accident; Ginny and Abi discussed it while the others listened, going over the story again for their own benefit. But eventually the conversation moved on to the day’s games, and then to the sports reporting at the _Prophet_.

“It drives me mad,” Ginny said. “It’s so bad. Especially Livia - she’s always flirting to try and get a story. Which I hate saying because people always assume that about female sports journalists, but she actually told me she was fine with a more intimate interview and leant forward.”

Draco gave his best attempt as a husky giggle. “Oh, I _looove_ Quidditch players,” he said, flipping long hair he didn’t have over his shoulder. He leant into Potter, pressing his upper arms in as if it could give him cleavage. “Won’t you tell me all about your broom? I hear it’s top of the range.”

Potter laughed. “Hey, a mean impression. There’s the real Malfoy!”

“Oh, you’re saying that’s a good thing?”

“Well, I didn’t say I wanted _pure_ Malfoy.”

Draco felt his smile waver a little. “I’m leaving that behind, Potter. Or trying.”

“Yeah, I know. Another drink?”

“Thanks.”

They got tipsy and silly together. Ginny was less spiky around Dennis and her teammates, and they seemed less suspicious of Draco than he’d expected; maybe Potter vouching for him by inviting him helped. Even so, he wasn’t paying much attention to the others. As the night wore on Draco found himself regressing a little around Potter, and Potter did the same thing, as they teased each other about Slytherin and Gryffindor, about their choices of alcohol, about their clothes. 

“Your hair is such a disaster,” Draco said, reaching out. Potter’s brows, surprisingly black and heavy above the bright eyes, creased as Draco tugged at the ends. It was unexpectedly soft and Draco was abruptly aware of how close they were, and the heated air of the crowded pub between them. He had his hand in Potter’s hair. He swallowed and let go.

“That one I’ll cop to,” Potter said ruefully. “It always sticks up at the back, whatever I do.”

Draco groaned. “No,” he whined. “It’s not fun if you just agree with me. I had this whole thing about how Ginny only went for you because of her crippling ginger background giving her low hair standards and now you’ve ruined it.”

Potter’s chuckle was deep enough to shiver through him.

“See, this is more like it,” said Potter. “It’s been so strange at work, seeing you be all… buttoned-up. Quiet. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t care what you like,” Draco lied.

“I know,” Potter said, seeming unbothered. “It’s just nice to see you being sarcastic and a bit horrible. It’s weird when you’re polite and don’t say anything. It’s a bit unnerving, honestly, I spent six years weirdly obsessed with all the ways you were evil and now you’ve been... It’s like you’re not you.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

He’d curse himself in the morning for sounding so unguarded, so surprised. For saying something that seemed to beg for approval.

Potter regarded him through slightly bleary eyes, then reached out and tugged at Draco’s hair gently, getting him back.

“I think so.”

***

Draco was settling down to his sandwiches and current issue of the BHA journal on Tuesday afternoon when Potter appeared at his door. Draco jumped a little; he hadn’t expected anyone to come by his office for a while.

“Could I have lunch in here?” Potter said.

Draco blinked at him for a moment, then gestured him in, not quite trusting his voice to sound cool and collected. Potter looked relieved.

“I thought it’d be good, y’know… to see you when you’re not a bit drunk or explaining how not to strain our groins doing trick riding.”

Draco put so much effort into keeping his face still he almost choked. “Um-hm.”

“So what’ve you got for lunch?” 

“Just peanut butter sandwiches,” Draco said. “I’m not much of a cook, you know. We had a house-elf growing up, and - but you remember that.” _Shit._ He ducked his head and focused on his sandwich.

“Yeah.” Potter’s voice was soft, but Draco didn’t sense anger. He chewed his mouthful thirty times, waiting to see if Potter would want to talk about Dobby. Potter didn’t say anything.

“What about you?” Draco said.

“Oh, I like cooking. It’s a lot of vegetables and lean meat, of course, athletes’ diets can be a bit boring. I like finding interesting spices and things, though. The Dursleys hated anything bright or hot in their food.”

“Dursleys?” Draco said, not sure that was a real word.

“Er, never mind. What’re you reading?”

“It’s a journal about healing. Best practices, recent studies, that sort of thing. There’s something here about the way Wolfsbane interacts with menstrual cycles that’s rather fascinating…” Three minutes later Draco blinked and shut his mouth. “Er, sorry. Please do interrupt, I know you’re not particularly interested in the intricacies of potion-making.”

Potter shrugged, smiling. “I kind of like hearing you talk about it.”

Draco’s cheeks heated, and he cursed his pale skin.

They sat and talked about music, and hiding their harder tastes from Draco’s mother and Mrs Weasley. Potter’s surprisingly sardonic sense of humour kept flashing out; Draco found himself laughing hysterically more than once, Potter laughing too, the noise filling his echoingly quiet office.

After that Potter came by for lunch most days, and warned him if he couldn’t come. Draco only ever nodded, not wanting to let on how impatient he got in the hour before lunch, and how the banter and good conversation warmed him right through the afternoon. Sometimes he even liked the slightly confused looks Potter’s teammates gave them, because Potter didn’t seem to notice.

Potter breezed in at around one-thirty, comfortable enough now that he didn’t bother to knock and announce himself, just went to get Draco’s bottle of elderflower from his supply cupboard.

“Could you get the mustard?” Draco called. “It’s right at the back.”

“Er, no.” Potter backed out of the cupboard, elderflower in hand. “Sorry.”

“Oh. All right.” 

“I don’t like small spaces,” Potter said in a rush. “Especially dark ones. It’s - it looks cramped in there.”

Draco nodded and went to get the mustard himself. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for claustrophobia. Not that I haven’t had touches of it myself, especially the first year after the war.”

There was a pause while Draco searched for the smooth Dijon, and when he emerged from the cupboard, Potter said, “it’s a long story.”

Another pause while Draco put mustard on his roast beef sandwich in the specific swirl of yellow he liked. Then Potter said, “ask me about it another time, when I’m drunk, and I might tell you.”

Draco only said, “well, don’t feel you must,” and handed Potter the mustard. After a little while he allowed himself a private smile.

Potter had offered to tell him a secret.

Draco started bringing in more elaborate lunches, with lots of fish or turkey and vegetables, so that he could swap half with Potter. He brought in more sugar, too, after discovering Potter had a sweet tooth to rival his own. They demolished half a treacle tart one Thursday, and Potter’s face was luminous. It made Draco’s heart squeeze sweetly in his chest.

***

The Cannons only lost Saturday’s game by thirty points, thanks to Potter catching the Snitch within twenty minutes. Draco reached the pitch quickly, not wanting Potter to be swept off by his teammates before Draco could join them; he didn’t think he’d be brave enough to turn up at the pub on his own. Potter’s face split into a wide grin as he met Draco’s eyes and Draco smiled helplessly back. 

Potter was handsome, and sharp, and so swift and agile on his broom. He was _kind_ , and Draco would never have imagined that would draw him in so irresistibly. And after years of sidling past life in the hope of avoiding notice, the bright intensity of Potter’s attention was wonderfully overwhelming; he wavered before it, like a starving man at the scent of food. 

There had never been any point in fighting this desire. He’d known already that he wasn’t any good in the face of a hopeless cause; it was Potter who did the impossible.

Draco sucked in a breath as Potter took hold of his wrist, and hoped the sound was lost in the pop of Apparition.

The pub was empty as they arrived - of course it was; Potter had ended the game well before the typical time. The whole team was there this time, plus the Arrows, who were enthusiastic in their compliments, as victors could afford to be. Draco felt a little uncertain, but it was easy to fade into the background with John exultant and the Keeper starting a drinking contest with two of the Chasers. Potter’s eyes kept coming back to him, though, and Draco hoped his flush would be put down to his beer.

Potter was listening to something Johann, a Beater who didn’t usually start, was saying. Draco should be looking at Johann, but he couldn’t quite make himself. So he saw the moment when shock flashed across Potter’s face, concern creasing his forehead. Draco turned to see Ginny Weasley coming towards them. 

Her face was red, and for a moment he felt a flash of nerves. But this wasn’t the anger that had sparked her rampaging Valkyrie-style back at Hogwarts; it was helpless and furious, making her squint like a toddler about to burst into tears.

“What happened?” Potter said.

“Ali’s in the hospital,” she said. She pulled out her Quidditch ponytail, raking through her hair with shaking hands. Potter exclaimed with concern, but Ginny wasn’t finished. “It was sabotage. It looks like last week was too. They attacked us deliberately - someone messed with the balls. Maybe her broom as well.”

“What? Who would - ”

“Who knows?” Ginny interrupted, her words tumbling over each other. “There’ve always been wankers who didn’t like having an all-female team doing well in the league, and Ali being a female England captain… Or it could be an ex or something. Or a crazy fan. But it had to have been at least something of an inside job, only people with a league ID can get to where they keep the balls in the referees’ headquarters… Merlin, I don’t know. I need a drink.”

She was back in record time, laden with drinks bought by other members of the league as the news of what had happened spread through the pub. Draco bit his lip, hating himself for the selfish worry that flashed through him: what if it was a Death Eater? What if that went public?

“It must’ve been an inside job, right?” Potter said. He leant forward intently, and Draco was abruptly reminded that he’d qualified as an Auror. “This and last week - it was the balls going screwy both times. That happened to me once - not as obviously - back at Hogwarts. Then it was a teacher, messing with the Bludgers. The balls are kept in the Quidditch Association HQ, right? To stop teams tampering with them? So it’s either someone with access there or the referee… unless maybe someone waylaid the ref and Obliviated them, but there are checks for that they can do - ”

Ginny shut her eyes. “Can we not talk about this any more?”

Potter’s eyes widened; he lent back again, looking chagrined. “Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to go off on a weird Department of Magical Law Enforcement run there…”

“Truly, you would’ve been the pride of DMLE,” Draco drawled. He pronounced it _dimly_ and Potter rolled his eyes, laughing. “Witches and wizards swooning everywhere. Oh, Auror Potter, I’m afraid I don’t really have a cat stuck up a tree, but you could definitely help me with my pussy.”

Potter rolled his eyes and Ginny punched his arm.

“Abuse!” Draco protested. “Do you see this assault happening? Arrest her!”

“Harry and I moved past the handcuffs portion of our relationship a while ago,” said Ginny. Potter flushed delightfully.

“Listen, Gin, she’ll be all right,” Potter said. “Nothing can keep Abi down.”

Ginny nodded. She was chewing on her lip, face still flushed, eyes bright. Draco was hit by the horrified knowledge that she might actually cry. Right now.

“Yeah,” Draco said. “Bludgers can’t keep Abi down, I’m always hearing idiots call her a ballbuster.”

There was a tiny silence and for a moment he thought he’d hit the wrong note of crass given a woman was in the hospital, and Ginny was about to revive the Bat-Bogey Hex from school. Then Ginny was laughing, loud and long.

He couldn’t fix this, or even help heal Abi. But he could make Ginny laugh, and that was something.

And some part of him was preening, to be making a group of people laugh again, even when terrible things had happened.

A lot of other Harpies arrived, clumping together over a few tables instead of going to see their friends from other teams. Ginny nodded at them and went to join her teammates.

The rest of the Cannons were caught up in speculating about what had happened or trying to keep enjoying their near-victory. Draco and Potter were alone in a little pool of silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Draco looked at Potter and went breathless.

He needed to think about something else. 

“Can I ask why you didn’t stay an Auror?” Draco said. “You put three years of your life into that training, and you obviously still think like an Auror and want to, you know, investigate…”

Potter shrugged and began pulling the label off his beer in bits. “I almost stayed. I was terrible at first, you know; I was so used to it being a war, and I’d do anything to win, but you can’t do that when you’re an Auror. You can’t just use whatever spell kind of works and do whatever it takes. You have to know exactly what’s needed, and you do what you’re allowed and no more. Everybody thought I’d just walk into being an Auror - I thought that, at first, if I’m honest - and then I was terrible.”

“But you passed.”

“Yeah. I got over it, or I got better anyway. But I just… sometimes I thought about being an Auror forever, and it was like… like a tunnel. Just grim and horrible and no way out, carrying on fighting the good fight and seeing awful things, because that’s what I needed to do. What I’d been trained to do.”

Draco nodded, not sure if Potter was even seeing him. His voice was low and steady.

“I’d never really thought about doing anything else. And I was getting to be good at it. I imagined doing something else, sometimes, but that didn’t seem… possible. I was Harry Potter, right? Of course I’d be an Auror.”

Draco winced a little, hearing the echo of things he’d said himself.

“And then Ron left. He’d started a year after me anyway, and he was halfway through second year and doing well, but George needed help - Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes has three locations now, you know, and he didn’t want to run it with someone who wasn’t his brother. And Ron told me - you can’t let him know I told you this, okay?”

“Promise.”

“We got drunk one night and he told me he was sorry, that he knew a joke shop wasn’t serious or important like being an Auror, but he thought he could be good at it and this was how he was gonna honour Fred. He thought it wasn’t important or fighting for what’s good, but I thought… I said to the Weasley twins once, before the war started, _we’re all gonna need a lot of laughs._ So… yeah.” Potter huffed out a breath. “It took me a while longer to work through it, and actually act on it, but… Ron made me realise that maybe I could help the world without signing up to live with more brutality. Y’know, Quidditch… it brings some happiness to the world. People are watching in record numbers since the war. It’s good to be part of that.”

As if that were the only way he could justify Quidditch. As if he hadn’t done more than enough for the wizarding world. As if wanting Quidditch wasn’t enough. Draco’s chest hurt.

“I dunno if Ron gets it, even now. An Auror trainer came to the shop and talked to him about leaving once, telling him off and trying to get him to come back. Hermione was in the back room and she could hear Ron just taking it, and she got so annoyed she came out, yelled ‘jokes are serious business!’ and threw a test product at him.”

“What happened?”

“It turned his hair irreversibly purple.” Potter grinned. “I think Ron helped him with it, though.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’s less obvious than me and Ron, maybe, but Hermione’s got just as much of a temper as we do.”

“I remember,” Draco said, rubbing his cheek meaningfully, and Potter laughed. “Not to say I didn’t deserve it.”

“Probably,” Potter said. “But one of the benefits of not being an Auror is not having to think about what people deserve.”

***

He met Pansy for dinner on Monday. She told him about her apothecary, and the somewhat creepy warlock who she’d refused to sell pearl dust and powdered moonstone because he’d bought ashwinder eggs already, and she had opinions about Amortentia. The warlock had tried setting off a fireball that could have ignited the entire shop, but she’d recognised the movement of his wand and drenched him with water in time.

She told the story casually, with a smug grin on her face. Draco was horrified.

“You could’ve been killed! Merlin, Pansy, Knockturn Alley is a bloody death trap.”

“Legitimate apothecaries wouldn’t hire me,” she said, irritation bleeding into her voice. “You know that. And on Knockturn at least they don’t sneer at me for trying to survive under Voldemort, whatever that took, because they all did the same thing. Honestly your way seems madder to me. I’m with - not my people, not exactly, but near enough. Where I don’t have to pretend not to know anything about dark magic or that I’m ashamed of my heritage.”

Draco shut his eyes. He wasn’t having that fight with her today; he didn’t know how. But shame ate into his gut at the knowledge he was still a coward. Still unwilling to defy pureblood prejudice if it cost him those he loved.

“Oh, never mind. I’m just - I’m worried about you too, Draco. Greg wrote to me. He said you’re spending a lot of time with Potter. That you like him.”

Embarrassment hit him. But he opened his eyes to see her dark ones searching his face with sincere concern. “I suppose it’s not really my business, and you’ve never listened to me about him anyway. But, Draco… you’re surrounded by people who’re suspicious of you, and everyone loves him. I just don’t want him to have one more kind of power over you.”

She had a point. But Draco shrugged helplessly, not wanting to tell her the truth. _I think it’s too late for that._

Lunch was his new favourite part of the day. Even when they lost track of time and an assistant coach had to come and track Potter down.

Maybe he’d go to that team dinner that was coming up after all. He’d been planning on pretending to be ill. He’d even considered buying Puking Pastilles, before realising that since the last time he’d bought anything from Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes Bill Weasley had been maimed, that was likely to end in more genuine damage to his health than he was looking for. 

He wondered if Potter’s friends knew he was spending time with Draco. They must have some idea - he thought Ginny Weasley would’ve told her brothers, and there’d been that damned _Prophet_ article - but did they know he was having lunch with Draco, and swapping sandwiches, and encouraging him to show his snarky side? Telling him private things about why he’d left the Aurors, and little secrets like his claustrophobia? 

He rather hoped they didn’t know. This all seemed too fragile to survive probing by Hermione Granger, or poking by Ron Weasley. 

He went to the team dinner after all, and Potter’s face lit up as he saw Draco arrive. “Draco! D’you wanna sit here?”

Happiness spangled through his chest at Potter’s enthusiasm, and he took the invitation. He didn’t look at the others, knowing he’d be unable to hold back a smug look. They hadn’t been cruel or deliberately iced him out, but he was still petty enough to enjoy their star wanting Draco to sit next to him.

Draco tried chatting with everyone during dinner. John was excitable as ever, and Joanne responded to his overtures, and the players seemed willing to be friendly thanks to the pub visits and Potter’s endorsement. Still, he kept falling into conversation with Potter almost by mistake; Potter’s voice would draw his attention, Potter’s surprisingly sardonic sense of humour would make him laugh, and before he knew it they were trading jokes and opinions, in their own little world.

People began to filter away around coffee and dessert, citing children to put to bed and needing to be up early. A few people stayed for more drinks. Draco and Potter ended up in a booth getting steadily drunk together.

They didn’t talk about Quidditch at all this time; there were too many other things they shared. Music, promising to play chess and soundly defeat each other, hate-reading a classist _Prophet_ columnist who thought Quidditch was for hooligans and society was going to the dogs. The horror of knowing your friends were already on top of their Christmas shopping. Having a sweet tooth well past the time adults were meant to prefer good cheeses to chocolate. Wanting to travel.

Wanting to travel partly to avoid the fame and notoriety they’d both earned. Draco was surprised by how much he recognised in Potter’s accounts of how he planned his shopping, his meals out, his life around not being recognised.

“I don’t want to whine,” Potter said. “I know it sounds silly, when people just want to be kind - I know you’ve got it much worse…”

“No,” Draco blurted out. “ _I_ don’t want to whine - you were right, I brought this down on myself, and it’s happening to you because you did the right thing.”

“I wish I hadn’t said that about you,” Potter said, face scrunching up. 

“It’s true.”

“I don’t know about that… and even if it is, I shouldn’t have used it to hurt you.”

Emotion welled up in Draco’s chest, and he hid his face in his glass of brandy, not wanting Potter to see it there. He was drunk, anyway. They both were, and Potter was probably a sentimental drunk. He didn’t mean any of this.

“And I hate what it’s done to you,” Potter said, voice earnest and only slurring a little. “It’s… I never thought I’d miss your impressions, they were always so mean and so accurate… or the sarcasm, but - you’re so buttoned-down now. So subdued. I didn’t - you were nasty, but you weren’t - I don’t know, evil. I don’t want you to feel defeated.”

Draco didn’t know how to cope with any of that, except - “you miss my impressions?”

Potter’s face softened. “Well, not as much - you do more of them now.”

Draco glanced away, a little shy, and realised everyone else had gone. They were almost alone in their booth in a dim corner of the restaurant. He turned back and found Potter’s face unexpectedly close to his. Deep green eyes so intent on Draco’s face; such intense attention, drinking him in, and for once Draco wasn’t afraid of it.

His eyes dropped to Potter’s mouth. He leant in.

Potter inhaled a little, sounding startled. It was a tiny sound but it hit Draco like a wave: cold and shock, then nausea. What was he _doing_? He jerked his head backwards, said, “I - I’m sorry,” then scrambled gracelessly from the booth and fled.

Potter didn’t call him back.


	3. Chapter 3

Draco woke up on Saturday and groaned into his hands as he recalled the previous night. He could’ve laid on his back forever, reliving Potter’s expression when Draco leant in, but Viviane came and started patting his hands where they covered his face. He knew from experience that the soft pats would end up involving claws if he made her wait too long, so he got up and fed her.

He’d have to see Potter tomorrow; there was a game. He had to work out what the hell he was going to do now.

Draco was such an _idiot_ for trying to sneak a kiss, why couldn’t he just have been happy with what he had? Bloody pureblood idiot. He never learnt; still trying to take whatever he wanted whether or not he should.

Maybe they could avoid each other. But the thought made Draco ache with loneliness; he didn’t want to lose his lunches with Potter, making him laugh, hearing Potter’s sly jokes and his thoughts about his day. The conversation and the moments of connection and the ease they had together. And Potter still had that book Draco had lent him and Draco wanted to hear what he thought.

Besides, what would happen at work if they thought he and Potter had had a fight? Draco had no illusions about the warmth and willingness to be charmed he’d seen at the team dinner last night; it would evaporate if Potter was hacked off. He hadn’t seemed angry in that moment, only shocked - but that might change. 

And Draco couldn’t lose being invited to the pub after games and getting a bit drunk and silly, surrounded by people. It was humiliating, to be so desperate for something he was sure everyone else took for granted, that other twenty-somethings certainly did all the time. But he’d been shut out of it during Healer training, and anyway he’d been in the library every night, trying to turn his not-bad marks into something truly impressive. It seemed small and petty and stupid, and he didn’t want to use Potter; he knew that was something that worried Potter, the idea of people trying to get close so they could get something. He didn’t want that to be him.

But his life was better when he was friends with Potter. _He_ was better; he’d liked this version of himself more.

All right. They had to stay friends. Maybe Draco could arrive early tomorrow, make sure he was in place before Potter got there. Then they wouldn’t have to interact. He’d congratulate Potter after the game - or commiserate - and then claim he had to leave early, that he had plans and couldn’t come to the pub. If he was friendly but didn’t try to spend a lot of time around Potter, didn’t do anything to suggest he wanted to get drunk with him and make a move like a _total fucking idiot_ \- maybe this could still be salvaged.

And they could have lunch together during the week, and Draco would just never say anything about his feelings. Dozens of people a day resisted telling Potter he was a gorgeous, funny, kind man and a hero to boot. Draco _saw_ people with very obvious crushes show at least that modicum of restraint. Draco at least had the brainpower of the Tornadoes Keeper; he was a Healer and that guy had taken several Bludgers to the head.

And Potter wouldn’t say anything, surely? He’d be relieved to realise Draco wasn’t going to make them talk about any feelings they might have (Draco) or not have (Potter), thankful not to have to deal with the embarrassment. They were both English. Repression would work.

Draco wrote a letter to his mother that had none of this in it and so probably sounded batty; he wasn’t up to filling in the gaps left in his account of his week by taking out Potter. He wrote another to Greg which was far too confessional, but Greg had lived with Draco throughout their adolescence so was probably not going to complain about Draco’s operatic levels of emotion when it came to Potter now.

He went to bed early and went to sleep late. He slept through his alarm on Sunday, but Viviane’s warbling for food woke him.

Kick-off wasn’t until three, so Draco had easily enough time to worry himself into a frenzy and then calm himself down with a book on Nocnitsa and mental health treatment for supernatural nightmares. He was at the pitch before anyone but Darius, thankfully. He’d be able to set up then get out of the way before Potter arrived. Potter was usually on the edge of late anyway.

Draco grabbed his Healer’s bag out of his office then headed for the pitch through the maze of damp concrete corridors around the stadium. He turned a corner and caught glimpses of green: the pitch at the end of the corridor, and Harry Potter’s eyes. 

At the sight of him Draco wanted to curl up into a ball of embarrassment. But just as his soul was curling with shame, Harry caught sight of him.

And his face lit up all at once.

It was like the Christmas lights being cast in Diagon Alley: pale shapes in the dark suddenly bright and warm and magical. Harry was coming towards him with that look on his face, and Draco felt himself stop cringing. Instead he reached out like he was feeling the length of his arms, knowing his own wingspan for the first time in years, taking up space. Harry reached out too, and Draco turned towards the touch like a flower seeking light, like a crooked, wind-blasted tree working out how to grow upwards. And then Harry was there in his arms, and Draco kissed him.

It shivered through him, moving him in ways he’d forgotten. In ways he wasn’t sure he’d ever known. He held onto Harry, to strong shoulders that grounded him even as Harry’s hands ran up into his hair and Harry’s lips moved against his and Draco felt everything go unmoored.

They separated and Harry was beaming at him. “Don’t go anywhere, okay? Don’t - don’t run away after the game.”

“I promise,” Draco said helplessly, lost in that smile.

“We could - would you come to a restaurant with me? And talk.”

Draco wanted to say something eloquent and romantic and heartfelt, something to whisk Harry Potter off his feet. But his mind was full of the shivers of that kiss and Harry’s eyes and his shoulders in his Quidditch gear and Harry _wanting him_. So all he managed was nodding, and smiling back.

Harry didn’t seem to mind.

The game passed in a blur; Draco couldn’t have said whether anyone was hurt, but nothing seemed to interrupt his staring at Harry darting across the sky.

It ended with Harry catching the Snitch. Draco didn’t think the Cannons had won - there would’ve been more excitement - but he honestly couldn’t have said. He moved onto the pitch and Harry came to meet him like finding true north. They moved towards each other then abruptly stopped a few feet away; Harry had clearly remembered at the same moment as Draco that they were in public.

“D’you wanna - there’s a Muggle restaurant I like, if that’s okay. Turkish. What d’you think?”

Muggle. Draco nodded eagerly, wanting to show he was fine with it. “Absolutely.”

Harry looked pleased.

In all honesty Draco was a little frightened; the people would be Muggles, and he wouldn’t know about the money or how to talk to them. But Harry would be there and he’d know. And Draco could try experiencing another culture and being surrounded by it, like he really was learning to be better. Like his attempts to stop being prejudiced against Muggles weren’t all fake, as he sometimes worried they were.

And maybe worrying about all of that would stop him being consumed by terror at being on a date with Harry Potter.

Harry took his hand instead of his arm this time when they Apparated.

They appeared in an alley, and Harry led him round the corner. They walked in tingling silence for a few minutes, and then Harry brought him inside a restaurant that smelt deliciously of bread and spices. It was dimly-lit enough to be romantic, with great spirals of metal dangling mosaic lamps all around. Being surrounded by coloured glass was beautiful, and it reminded Draco of a trip to wizarding Ankara and Istanbul he’d taken as a child. So the Muggles weren’t all that different.

The menus were still; no line drawings of food with the steam visibly curling off it, or moving photos. It was faintly unnerving; it seemed like something had gone wrong. But Draco reminded himself that this was how things were supposed to be, here, and tried thinking about something else.

Normally he and Harry would’ve been talking nineteen to the dozen. This time there was an edgy quiet, fizzing with the strangeness of it all and the kiss they’d shared. They kept catching each other glancing over the top of their menus, then looking away. They were sharing a booth, not separated by a table, and Draco wasn’t sure if he was glad.

This was a date. Draco had barely been on any. This strange, awkward silence was a new kind of tension between Harry and him. But he shut his eyes, sucked in a breath, and reached for the social graces his mother had so laboriously taught him.

“So how did you find this place? It’s lovely.”

“Hermione brought me and Ron here once. She grew up round here, you know.” Harry hesitated, then gave a crooked smile. “I’m glad you like it.”

“The lamps are beautiful… and I love Turkish food.”

“Oh yeah? Did you have it growing up? I didn’t.”

“No?”

“No, my Muggle family hated anything that wasn’t English and boring, like them.”

Draco laughed. “Oh, I remember you said! Well, the Manor house elves generally only did quite traditional English food with occasional forays into the continent, but we went on holiday to Turkey once, and around the Mediterranean more than that. My father rather hated going to places where he’d get sunburnt and the food was different, but both my parents thought trying new foods was important. To be cultured, you know.” He smiled a little awkwardly. He wished he hadn’t mentioned his parents, but Harry was still listening, his eyes still kind. “Not that it really worked. I’m an awful cook for myself, for one thing.”

“Believe me, I’ve noticed. I’m the one who nicks half your lunch, remember?”

“Hey! You still eat it!”

“True,” Harry said, grinning. “But who knows if I’ll keep doing that now I’ve got you to go out with me.”

Draco burst out laughing, delighted by his cheek and his confidence, and how that confidence wavered a little: Harry glanced down, rubbing his cheek. “Not that I’m assuming anything…”

“Oh you were, you scandalous Quidditch player, you. I’ll have you know I’m a nice boy.”

Harry burst out laughing. Draco glared. “Oh come on, Malfoy. I have met you.”

“And somehow you don’t believe I’m a nice boy being seduced by a wicked Quidditch player?”

“Only if you’re into that.” Harry’s eyes glinted above his smile and Draco swallowed, wrongfooted for a moment.

The silence bloomed between them. Draco couldn’t speak; he didn’t know if he wanted to, if breaking the awkwardness would be worth breaking the weight of anticipation as they stared at each other. 

Harry was braver, of course: he spoke first, low and cool and sweet, like underground water. 

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” Draco lied.

“I do, I think,” said Harry. “I want to kiss you.”

Draco kissed him. It would’ve been embarrassing how fast it got to him, how it sent shivers through his scalp and down his back as Harry stroked his hair, except that Harry started making soft, eager sounds, muffled by Draco’s mouth.

They were interrupted by a soft cough. Draco flew back, his back thumping against the booth, and the waiter delivered olives and pitta and houmous without making eye contact, then withdrew.

A silent, shared intake of breath, then they both burst out laughing.

“Oh God,” Harry choked. “Wow.”

“Scandalous Quidditch player,” Draco said again, and Harry hit out at him, still laughing.

“Shut up. Wow, can you imagine if we were in a wizarding restaurant?”

Draco shuddered elaborately. Then he looked at Harry again. Harry had been honest, had been brave. He deserved honesty and bravery in return, or at least for Draco to try.

“You asked what I wanted. I want - I want us to do this again. To - see if this can - if we can - ”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and then they kissed some more.

His mother would be horrified. It was nothing overtly sexual, and the restaurant was fairly dark, and still quiet - it was barely six. But he was sitting there, kissing this man in public, barely able to turn away. 

Harry laughed softly, and Draco wanted to fit the curve of Harry’s smile against his lips. He did, but after a few seconds Harry pulled away again. “We’re in a restaurant. We should try actually eating.”

Draco made a dismissive noise but allowed it. The food was very good, after all, and Harry kept making pleased little sounds as he ate it.

When they were finished, Draco rewarded them both with more kisses. They didn’t notice the dishes for their starters being taken away.

He didn’t expect this. He’d known he wanted Harry, of course, but not this level of… this. It was astonishing. He didn’t know what to do with it.

He was a bit worried about what they’d do at work. Even their star Seeker would probably have to spend some time practicing instead of kissing Draco, and that would be so many hours in the same place and not kissing.

Ugh, disgusting. He was disgusting. They were disgusting. They needed to hide indoors where they’d never inflict this level of soppiness on anyone else, and just -

Draco blinked, cruelly torn from his fantasy by their next course being delivered. They managed to smile politely at the waiter, and the moment he was gone they were on each other. Draco felt himself flush; he was behaving like a teenager, like a fool. But no one knew him here except for Harry, and Harry seemed to like it.

“Our food’s getting cold,” he said eventually.

“Gone cold. But you’re right, we should stop and eat. I’m hungry and I don’t think you’ll let me bite you properly.”

“I bruise easily,” Draco said. “Not that that’s a yes or no.”

Harry swallowed hard. “...Brat,” he said eventually, his voice not quite even. “I’ll get you for that in the end.”

“I’m sure,” Draco said, voice pleased and wicked and very nearly calm.

Draco’s lips were tingling, almost sore, even as he managed to turn away long enough to eat. This would be a long meal, he thought, involving many necessary breaks.

“So when did you start… I don’t know…” Draco huffed in frustration.

“Start fancying you?” said Harry, fearless as ever, though Draco caught a hint of a blush. “Pretty early; I realised after the _Prophet_ article. I didn’t have any grand plan to seduce you or anything, though. I was still weirded out I felt that way. I just wanted things to be easier between us. I didn’t expect to like you so much.”

Draco grinned. 

“And you? When did you develop your little crush?”

“Oh, I don’t have any feelings for you at all,” Draco said. “I’m just in it for the halloumi.” He popped some in his mouth to prove the point.

“Oh, I see. So you weren’t going to kiss me at the dinner on Friday?”

“Certainly not. I have a whole long excuse for leaning in I made up at three a.m., if you’d like to hear it.”

“I’m all right,” Harry said, and leant in. Laughing against each other’s mouths, they kissed each other to silence.

They left only long hours later. It hadn’t all been betrayals of their country with public affection, although there’d been a few times where Draco felt himself rushing to fit in all the conversation he wanted before one of them broke again, reaching to touch, revelling in being allowed to. 

They went back to the alley so they could Apparate secretly. Watching Harry - long legs and dark hair and pale neck rising out of his coat - Draco was tempted to invite him back to his flat. He didn’t quite dare, though, and Harry didn’t ask either.

Harry leant right into him instead. This one was a full-body kiss, Harry’s warmth and weight pressed against him everywhere, and Draco surged to meet him, mind going blank as his body took over.

Harry Apparated with a _crack_ , and Draco stumbled at the loss of his body. Draco laughed into the empty air, said, “you rotter,” aloud, and then Apparated home.

He wondered if Viviane knew what had changed.

***

The glow stayed with him as he pretended to read, and as he wrote Greg a thoroughly humiliating letter, and as he fell into sleep. He woke smiling. The glow was still with him as he went downstairs, and then he unfolded the _Prophet_ and it vanished in a shock of cold.

_SAVAGE ATTACK ON TUTSHILL TORNADOES LEAVES THREE PLAYERS INJURED_ , screamed the headline. The pictures below showed two players colliding then falling, a frantic manager making some kind of announcement, and a shot of the crowd taken from a distance, their open mouths tiny, smeared black holes.

He swore three times, voice hard and frantic and breathless, and then read the article. Another attack, and this one on an all-male team. It hadn’t been rampant misogyny that had been behind the attacks on the Harpies, then, which was almost more frightening. If they couldn’t imagine what the motive was, how could they fight it?

It was Death Eaters. It had to be; who else would be hurting people for no reason? Who else would benefit from attacking Quidditch players, when the sport was at all-time heights of popularity as people tried to forget the war?

Quidditch was meant to be an escape from the darkness. Of course they’d attack that first. They always went for the beacons.

Like Draco had, when he’d brought Death Eaters into Hogwarts.

He couldn’t eat his breakfast, stomach a toxic stew of fear and guilt. He turned on the wireless while he threw away his toast and got dressed, and the serious, worried voices filled his head. After the Sunday game, Monday was meant to be a day off for players and most of the staff, but he knew the players would be going in after all this and he needed to hear what the plan was. 

He dressed and headed for the Floo, already making plans. He’d need to have more emergency supplies ready to go - the Tornadoes had seen half their team go down at once. Maybe John would give him time to train some of the admin staff on emergency procedures, just in case. Pansy’d give him a good price on some anti-dark magic business - maybe a bezoar or two, just in case -

“Draco!” He blinked and looked up as he stepped out of the fireplace. Joanne was there, and she opened her arms for a hug. Unexpected but not a problem; he hugged her back, rather enjoying the sense of solidarity.

“Glad you made it. Come on, John’s going to talk to us all in a bit - we’re having tea while we wait for everyone to show up.”

He followed her into the boardroom, the only room big enough to fit them all besides the changing rooms. John was grey-faced but attempting smiles, and Darius was hovering like a hen with one chick, bringing him mugs of tea and biscuits. The others reminded Draco of people at a wake, chatting easily then looking guilty if they laughed too loudly, as they remembered they weren’t meant to feel happy just now.

Harry wasn’t there yet, so Draco settled in with Joanne and asked her about her ballroom dancing competition, grateful they’d chatted enough that he had something to say. 

“D’you think the _Prophet_ will want to talk to us?” Almas asked. 

“They might want a quote at some point,” said John. “We’ll have to see. I Floo’d a few of the managers yesterday and this morning to say hello, offer support, but obviously we’re all busy just now.”

“The owners must be freaking out,” said Joanne. “I mean, the public is, and if they stop buying tickets because they don’t feel safe at the games then - ” She saw Darius’ glare and cut herself off. “Er. I’m sure that won’t happen, though.”

“I’m sure it won’t,” said Darius. “People are tough. They’re not going to let this scare them off.”

“Besides, none of the spectators have been hurt, have they?” said Draco. “Only players so far. Obviously that’s terrible,” he added hastily as everyone’s eyes turned to him. “But it means there’s no reason for your average witch or wizard to be scared. Surely?”

“Logic’s gonna go out the window fast, though,” said Fiona, the starting Keeper. “Quidditch is meant to be an escape for people.”

Like Harry. Draco lost the battle for self-control abruptly; he was sure he didn’t even sound casual when he asked where Harry was.

“Dunno,” said one of the Chasers. “I owled him last night, but no reply by the time I left.”

“I owled him along with everyone else yesterday evening, telling him what happened and about the meeting,” said Darius. “I’m sure he’ll be along in a bit.”

...So everyone else had been owled. Draco glanced around and didn’t see surprise on any other faces. He felt a spike of hot humiliation and rage. How dare they leave him out? He was one of them too, he was - he was just the Healer. And Darius had probably owled the other staff by memory, and Draco never had lunch with them - he barely saw them. It wouldn’t have been deliberate.

He was still angry; he could feel the miserable flush still on his cheeks. It was worse for feeling ridiculous. But he really could’ve done with a warning, instead of finding out along with the rest of the wizarding world from the _Prophet_.

He thought with a sinking feeling of the hate mail he had coming his way - literal poison-pen letters.

“Hi guys.” Draco’s head jerked up at the sound of that voice and he found Harry’s green eyes on him. A quiet, intimate smile winked out just for him, like the flash of a lighthouse, before Harry turned to greet the others.

Harry came and sat by him before the meeting really started. There wasn’t time to say anything, as John stood to speak immediately; instead Draco just smiled and tried to stop himself from listing gently to the lift, to stop himself from inching closer to Harry’s warmth.

It was strange and a little terrible, to have his head so full of a new relationship when they were all there because of sabotage.

John attempted an inspirational speech. He talked about bravery, and bringing joy to people, and fair play, and competition that went alongside kindness inside of the brutal rivalries of wartime. It wasn’t bad; John’s boundless optimism and belief in the value of Quidditch stood him in good stead, and it was kindly meant. And an inspirational speech of this kind shouldn’t be aimed at former Death Eaters. It wasn’t his fault that Draco spent the whole time feeling enormously out of place. John talked about how they’d always fought back the dark before, and people glanced at Harry. Draco, sitting beside him, tried not to clutch at his left arm.

“All right guys,” John said finally, “you weren’t meant to be at work today. Thanks so much for coming in so we could talk about this. Remember, the Aurors will be in to investigate, and they’re gonna be around in general, keeping us safe. You don’t need to be worried.”

Draco kept his face still with an effort. Maybe the Aurors would catch the attackers before he had to speak to them. 

“I’ll see you all tomorrow. Try to relax, okay?”

A chorus of thanks and goodbyes followed. Draco and Harry turned to each other under cover of the noise.

“Are you okay?”

Draco chuckled. “I was going to ask you that. I’m… I’m fine. I don’t know. This is awful, but at the same time…” He felt the flirty smile spread across his face without his permission. “Well. You know.”

Harry smiled back, impossibly handsome. “I know.” They smiled at each other for a few moments, unspeaking; they probably looked like idiots but it felt magical, this tiny little communion amidst the buzz of people, this shared secret. “Listen, d’you wanna come and hang out with us? Me and some of the players, maybe Almas, and some of my friends - we’re going to play Quidditch for fun, not worry about form or anything, and hang out.”

Draco was enormously tempted for a moment, but shook his head. “It’s - thank you. I do want to see you some more, but… I need to be alone.”

Harry’s face creased but he nodded, accepting it. His eyes dropped to Draco’s mouth for a moment, but they were in public; he touched his fingers to Draco, so brief it could’ve been accidental. It was still enough for Draco to find a smile.

He knew Harry would be kind. Maybe the others would too. But he couldn’t imagine Harry needed him today. What Harry needed was surely to be surrounded by people who’d fought beside him, who’d protect him again if they needed to, who he could trust absolutely. That wasn’t Draco; not yet, anyway.

He’d like to play Quidditch again - for fun, and to show the Death Eaters he wasn’t scared. But being around Harry’s friends and the players? Even if they didn’t say anything about his past, he’d spend all day waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Draco went home and tried not to obsess over either Harry and what was happening between them now, or the attacks; but each led back to the other. He was Harry Potter _and_ he was a Quidditch player - how could he not be a target for these attackers? How could he not be _the_ target? 

Maybe he was the grand finale. Selfishly, Draco hoped the attackers were still working up to that; maybe other people would be attacked first, and it’d give the Aurors a chance to find them before Harry was ever in danger.

That kind of thought was probably why he’d ended up with this Mark, and Harry had risked his life to stop them.

Pansy owled halfway through the day, asking if he had time for a drink that night. Draco said yes with relief, grateful for the distraction, and invited her round - it’d be foolish to surround themselves with drunk witches and wizards right now. 

He tried spending the afternoon productively, but medical journals couldn’t hold his attention and he ended up burying himself in rereading _Crucio Me_ , one of the kinkier Auror romances on his shelves.

Pansy looked exhausted when she Flooed in at half-eight. She dropped sideways into an armchair without ceremony, head slumping against the arm.

“What happened to you?”

“The news. I had to improve our own security, of course, in case we get blowback - have you done here, by the way, you should - and then lots of people were coming in for ingredients for protective spells and healing potions and all sorts of things. Amulets, all of that… and plenty of them wanted to get a bit of dark magic off me.” She snorted. “As if I’m that stupid - they thought sidling up to me and just asking in an undertone if I had “anything… _extra_ ” would work. And then when I said no they’d yell about me being a Death Eater and storm out.”

“Ugh. Firewhiskey?”

“Please.”

They fell into discussing other things, both looking for distraction. Pansy left around eleven with both of them a little tipsy, and Draco clutching a bezoar she’d given him “just in case.”

He went to work on Tuesday feeling cold and anxious, but there’d been no magical attack. The worse he’d got were two letters promising the Aurors would find him out, because this had all started when he began working in the league and that couldn’t be a coincidence. 

The Incendio had lit up the room.

John immediately gave Draco permission to spend more money and time adding to their emergency supplies and teaching Almas some more advanced emergency magic. Just in case. Draco buried himself in the work all morning. It was strange and distressing; he didn’t want to think about why he was doing it, the scenarios he was preparing for - but he needed to play them out so he could be ready.

At least he was doing something, though. He might not be able to face down the Death Eaters, to force them away with blood and magic, but he could do this. He could be ready to heal people if they attacked.

At lunchtime, Draco was counting out tiny Shrivelfig seeds for three bottles’ worth of Blood-Replenishing Potion. He needed a dozen seeds per measure and he kept losing track: he couldn’t stop looking up every time he heard a creak outside, or glancing at the clock to see if the players would’ve finished practice yet.

Oh, who cared about trying to be cool and unaffected? This was him and Harry Potter: that ship had sailed well over a decade ago. He went and waited just off the pitch, in the corridors that the players used when they’d landed.

Draco peeked out onto the pitch. At this angle the players were just dark silhouettes swooping across a colourless sky. He recognised Harry nevertheless: small, sharp, darting around at high speed.

John’s whistle blew, and Harry dropped into one of his signature dramatic dives. Draco felt a thrill in his chest, watching; Harry really was going to be one of the greats one day, if he kept on like this.

The other players came down slowly, and lingered on the grass. Harry headed towards the corridor at speed, though. Draco saw the moment Harry got out of the winter sun enough to see him there, and grinned. Harry jogged over into the corridor, and at last he was there in front of Draco, windswept and red-cheeked and bringing all the glory of flight with him into the airless concrete corridor. 

Harry glanced around to check that they were out of sight. He was still in uniform, including his fingerless leather Quidditch gloves. Draco felt the roughness of the stitches and the smoothness of the worked leather against his cheek as Harry brushed his palm against his face, and then the shocking intimacy of bare fingertips at his cheekbone before Harry’s mouth touched his.

It helped. It helped a lot.

Draco pulled back with an effort. “My office, before anyone else comes along.”

“Good idea.”

Draco closed the door of his office, shutting out the world beyond, and turned into Harry’s kiss. It was heady and a little shocking to be kissing Harry without anyone else in the room, with his body against Draco’s, warm and close and _right there_ under his hands. Harry’s hair was surprisingly soft for how it sprang up every which way, and he was a little shorter, and his mouth sent shivers through Draco.

Harry’s thumb stroked across Draco’s cheek and he felt himself flush under the touch. He was getting hard, and he wasn’t sure he wanted Harry to know. He pulled back a little, slowing down, and Harry took the cue.

Harry exhaled and scrubbed a hand through his hair as they separated. “God. This is… don’t get me wrong, this is great. But it’s weird.”

“I know. The timing’s…”

“I feel a bit guilty. I should be doing something, y’know? Not trying to distract myself - not just trying to make myself feel better by thinking about kissing you instead of helping to fix this.”

Draco paused. “Harry - don’t take this the wrong way, alright? But there’s nothing you can do right now. Aside from just playing Quidditch and not letting this scare you off, which you are.”

“You’re right.” Harry closed his eyes for a moment, heavy black brows drawn together. “I wanted to do something else, not be an Auror. This is what that means.”

“And come on. You don’t need to be fighting dark magic. You’ve done enough. More than enough.”

Harry shook his head, wordless. Draco felt his own mouth twist up in dismay. He didn’t know what to say; he didn’t think he could convince Harry, and besides he didn’t want Harry to think he was selfish. To remind Harry of how Draco had chosen his family over the rest of the world.

“Let me distract you then.”

Harry looked up at him with a smirk that sent a shocking wave of heat through Draco. The green eyes were suddenly wicked. “Call me Harry, then.”

“What?”

“I like it that you’ve started calling me Harry.”

“...Oh.”

When Harry headed back to practice - a little late - Draco’s mouth was swollen and he could feel stubble-burn along his neck and jaw. He was starving, too, and thought a little guiltily of Harry doing his afternoon’s practice without lunch. They’d managed to distract each other a little too successfully.

He spent a dreamy few hours working, eating his sandwiches, and trying not to complete his infatuated-teenager impression by daydreaming. What brought him out of it was a cold rush of horror: that afternoon, the Aurors arrived.

He was an idiot. Of course they’d come.

He didn’t know at first; in his back office with its closed door, switching back and forth between focussing hard on his work and thinking about Harry’s muscled shoulders in his practice robes, it was easy to miss the Aurors’ arrival. 

He looked up at a knock on his office door, and then his door was opening and the scarlet of Auror robes splashed across his vision. He flinched back in horror, almost knocking over his stool. Then he stood, his brain clanging panic while he tried to tell himself they were here over the attacks on Quidditch players and nothing at all to do with him. While he tried to mask the panic, knowing he must already look guilty as sin.

“Malfoy?”

He blinked and realised they’d been speaking to him. He hadn’t heard a word they’d said. Hopefully they wouldn’t realise he hadn’t heard their names. “Er, yes, sorry. I didn’t take that in, could you - ?”

“She asked if you’re free to speak to us,” said the man. He had bright blue eyes against brown skin, and his Auror uniform was a little scruffy but his badge gleamed. He was handsome, which Draco might’ve appreciated if his mouth hadn’t been sour with fear. The other Auror was a thin, wrinkled woman with sharp dark eyes that Draco shrank from.

“Oh, yes, of course. Erm - do sit down. Can I get you anything - I don’t have much, but there’s tea - ”

“Don’t worry,” said the woman. “Please, sit down.”

He plopped down on his stool, too relieved to have instructions to mind being invited to sit down in his own office. The man sat down too, but the woman stayed standing.

“We’ve been speaking to everyone,” said the man. “We’re trying to find out if anyone might have seen something suspicious at a Cannons game.”

“Erm, no,” Draco said. “I - I’m always watching carefully, you know, so I can respond quickly if someone’s injured. I try not to watch the crowd or anything like that. If they’ve been at one of our games I wouldn’t have noticed, I don’t think - and even in retrospect I don’t think any of the injuries this season have been down to sabotage. We haven’t had anything severe - I think the worst was a mild sprain, but that only kept the player out for one game.”

“Mmm-hmm.” 

The man was taking notes. The woman’s eyes were flitting around the room, lingering on potions ingredients. “And you’ve not heard any rumours?” she asked. “Anything that seemed off?”

“No, I - no.” For a moment Draco had been about to explain that he didn’t really talk to Quidditch people much, but he supposed that was less true these days, now that Harry kept inviting him along to things.

“Can you think of anything that makes the Cannons different?” asked the man. “Or rather the Harpies and Tornadoes, I suppose. They’ve been targeted - the Harpies twice - and not the Cannons. Any idea why?”

“Not really. We all thought it was about sexism at first, you know - after the second attack on the Harpies, when they realised it’d been sabotage.”

“Who’s ‘we all’?”

“Oh, I - Ginny Weasley and Alison Debba told me about it, I was at the pub with them and Harry Potter - ”

“Oh yes. I think I saw that in the papers.” The woman’s voice was arch, though not cruel, and Draco flushed miserably.

“Can you tell me a bit about that conversation? Who was in the pub - anyone you didn’t recognise, who didn’t seem to be from the Quidditch world?”

As Draco spoke, and the man asked more questions, the other Auror started wandering around his office, picking things up and looking in drawers. It shouldn’t matter; Aurors were professionally curious, he told himself, and besides it was his workplace - he didn’t have anything personal or contraband stowed away. Yet the invasion of privacy grated; watching her hands and eyes rake over his things had him edgy. Something itched in the middle of his back. He sucked in a breath and called up memories of his mother teaching him not to squirm during dinner parties. He could do this.

Memories were nudging at the back of his mind: the Aurors in his home when he was twelve, aggressively questioning his father, his mother’s anxious voice from downstairs. And after the war, how they’d torn the Manor apart looking for evidence on the Death Eaters.

He’d told himself and told himself, in the years since, that they’d been doing what they needed to. It had been the Dark Lord’s headquarters, and the Aurors were making sure the Death Eaters would go to Azkaban this time. That had needed doing. Just because he’d been so desperate for home to feel like home again - because it had felt like being flayed, having them search through the horrors that’d been done there - it didn’t mean they’d been wrong.

They hadn’t even been wrong about his father. Not really. And he wasn’t drunk enough at _all_ to cope with thinking about that.

He blinked and tried to focus on what the handsome Auror was saying, not how the sharp-eyed one was poking through his cupboards.

“You said you hadn’t heard any rumours about these attacks, about Quidditch stuff,” said the man. The woman closed the cupboard and came back to stand next to him, pinning Draco in place with her eyes. “Have you heard anything about the Death Eaters?”

“No,” Draco said, and his voice was very nearly even. He’d known they’d ask this question. “I don’t know anything. I think it must be them but I didn’t know any active Death Eaters were still around. I don’t know any of them. And they wouldn’t share their plans with me anyway.”

“Not even your father?” said the woman.

Draco sucked in a harsh breath. They watched him while he tried to quieten his breathing and reminded himself that he really didn’t know anything. This time he was fully innocent.

“Active, I said,” he said eventually. The Aurors let the silence draw out, but Draco did nothing to fill it. Eventually they left. The man gave Draco his card on the way out. Draco stood by the door, frozen with the card between his fingers, while he counted to sixty. Then he set the thing alight with poison-green flame.

Harry opened the door about an hour later without knocking, and Draco flinched hard enough to knock dried bluebells off the counter. Luckily they were quiet, falling, and he managed to snag them off the floor quickly; he thought there was a small chance Harry hadn’t realised.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Draco said, and it came out just as evenly as he’d practiced. He was still edgy but he could hide it: it wasn’t antsiness, he was just putting everything back in place after the Aurors had been through it. Everything was fine.

Nothing was really out of place. He was just touching it, making it feel like his again.

He glanced at Harry. Shame he couldn’t do that with him. He wanted to touch Harry, relearn the shape of him, remind himself that he was still there under his fingers, undamaged. That nothing had been taken from Draco this time. 

But the presence of Aurors must be comforting for Harry: they were justice and fighting evil, they were friends he’d known. Draco wasn’t going to let on how much they frightened him. There was already so much separating Harry and him; no need to emphasise this difference.

He glanced at Harry again. Harry was just standing there, hands in the pockets of his jeans, watching him. There were faint lines around his eyes.

“What?” Draco snapped.

“Nothing,” Harry said mildly.

“You’re just - standing there watching me for no reason?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Don’t pick a fight just cos you’re tense.”

“Don’t play the oh-so-understanding one when your temper’s shorter than a goblin with a teenage smoking habit.”

“Don’t - oh, for goodness’ sake. Look, shall I come back when you’re in a better mood? Because I haven’t had the best day, and I don’t need this.”

At that, Draco frowned. “What went wrong?” he asked, finding himself drifting closer without meaning to.

“The Aurors.”

“What about them?” Draco said, torn between the urge to protect and sheer bafflement.

“It’s just… y’know, that could’ve been me. And their job’s awful right now, and I could be helping. It’s not… I don’t regret this choice, not really. It’s just bittersweet.”

Draco’s brain felt Petrified for a moment. He stood there blinking his way past the blinders of his own fear and self-protective instincts. He hadn’t wanted to look Harry straight in the face, worrying that Harry would see the anxiety in his expression, would guess at the way a glimpse of Auror scarlet made his heart pound. That he might see Draco’s old terror and fury, gone sour with age.

So he’d practiced pretending calm, faking the acceptance and understanding he wished he had. _Thank Merlin they came so quickly. Maybe one of us helped. Hopefully we’ll be buying them drinks soon._

They’d stormed his home and stolen his father, but he wasn’t going to let Harry see that.

Now Draco made himself look at Harry, and saw pain there.

Guilt lanced through him. Harry was brave enough to show Draco how he felt at seeing his could-have-been walking through. He deserved some kindness.

“...I’m sorry. Sit down - d’you want some tea?” Draco couldn’t quite stop the urge to hide, so he headed for his supplies. “I can make you something, give me a minute - ”

“No, don’t worry.” Harry stood still, and Draco paused as well. Looked at Harry again.

“Actually, I was hoping you’d come back to mine. I kind of want to get out of here - I could make you dinner.”

“Oh,” Draco said, a puff of sound. “All right.”

Harry smiled, and the warmth of it filtered through Draco like Butterbeer. They headed outside, and Harry took Draco’s hand and Apparated.

When they appeared again they were in a narrow London alley; it was spitting, dampening their hair and clothes. Harry kept hold of Draco’s hand as he led him onto the street. It was a little unnerving and a lot exciting, and Draco bit down on his smile.

He hadn’t been to Harry’s home before. He was a little intimidated by the thought, but more important than that was Harry reaching out, Harry keeping hold of his hand, even after Draco’s spikiness. Besides, it would even the footing between them: Harry had seen his place.

And he’d seen the Manor, of course, though Draco was hardly going to mention that.

The street was a familiar north London type, with rows of tall, narrow houses that still bore a smidge of smoke-stain from a century earlier. It was - very familiar, actually.

“Here we are,” Harry said. Draco blinked up at it. He thought he might be imagining things.

“I think I’ve been - well, in this area - ”

“It used to belong to Sirius Black,” said Harry. “Maybe you came here to see your mum’s relatives or something, when you were a kid and he was in Azkaban.”

Harry’s voice was soft and a little wounded, and so were his eyes. Draco kissed him, unable to stop himself.

The house wasn’t quite what Draco would’ve expected from Harry; it was dark and had a lot of cramped spaces, not at all like the wide open sky he associated with him. Perhaps Harry hadn’t changed it much from what it had been: the London townhouse of an ancient pureblood family, full of crooked corners and secrets.

Still, as they went through the hall with its enormous smoke-blackened portrait and dim light, and into the sitting room, Draco noticed a blue jumper with an H on the front left on a chair, and the Quidditch magazines, and a chess set with a half-finished game. The black side was actually Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes purple, and at a glance Draco could see it was winning. More importantly, the house smelt like Harry.

He smiled. “I like it.”

“Yeah?” Harry shoved his hands in his pockets. “Thanks. I’m never really - I dunno, it isn’t all my sort of style.”

“I can tell. But there’s something of you here. No Cannons stuff, though?”

Harry laughed. “Ron’s got all the Cannons merch any human could ever need. It’d be a bit embarrassing of me to have it, wouldn’t it? Besides, I didn’t grow up in the wizarding world. I never really found one team to follow.”

Draco shook his head. “I can’t even imagine.”

“I bet. Hey, what d’you want for dinner? I dunno if I have that much around… I can probably whip something up, though.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. Let’s just have whatever you would’ve eaten.”

“Huh. I would’ve thought you’d be pickier than that.”

Draco laughed. “I’m brighter than that. If I was picky you might make me help cook.”

Harry grinned. “You’re not a good cook? Or you don’t like it? I’d’ve thought you’d be good - you were good at Potions at school.”

“You remember that, do you?” Draco said dryly. “Potions is a bit different. They tend to give you such specific instructions, or at least Severus did. But bangers and mash don’t explode when you get it wrong - ”

“Despite the name,” Harry put in, and Draco made a disgusted face even as he laughed.

“My cooking is… it’s not horrific, but I was never brought up to cook. We had house-elves.”

“Wow.” Harry dropped onto the sofa behind him and gestured for Draco to follow him. Draco grinned to himself, realising they’d been just standing in Harry’s sitting room, too distracted by each other to sit. “That’s… I can’t imagine that. I always cooked, growing up. I didn’t like cooking for ages because of that, actually. I don’t always like cooking for other people, even now.”

“We could go out, I’m happy to treat - ”

Harry shook his head. “Nah. I’d - I’d kind of like to cook for you.”

Draco looked away to hide his blush. “Is that your chess set?”

“I actually have two - that’s the one I use with Ron. We used to play a lot at school, especially in the winter. These days we have something on the go for months at a time - we’re busy, you know. Him especially, with the shop. I always get thrashed, but it happens very slowly now.”

Draco swallowed a dirty joke, and then a comment about Weasley, and then Harry suggested they play a game. “We can use my other set, that’s less… er, purple.”

“Sounds good.”

Harry set things up on his coffee table, and they sat down to play. Draco suddenly had a close-up of the way Harry looked when he played Quidditch: the narrowing of his green eyes in ferocious concentration, the slight frown, the way he scrubbed at his hair. It was unfairly sexy.

Harry pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and Draco tried not to come undone over exposed forearms. That was just embarrassing.

Within twenty minutes Draco had lost three pieces and the rest were swearing at him in a tinny cacophony. He made a disgusted sound. “You’re cheating.”

“I am not!”

“Yes you are!” Draco gestured at him. “Look at you! All… sitting back casually and - the arms!” Harry had also splayed his thighs open and Draco couldn’t stop noticing the bulge in his jeans, but he certainly wasn’t going to say that. “You’re being sexy and it’s distracting.”

Harry laughed, and now he looked a little bashful and that was just making the problem worse. “How about Exploding Snap instead?”

“Yeah, I can’t think about anything but your hands in my hair, that seems like a great time to introduce explosions.”

“Oh dear,” Harry said. He sounded a little shy, but his voice got slower and deeper as he spoke. “I’m running out of ideas for how we’ll entertain ourselves.”

Draco knocked over his king and reached for Harry in one movement.

Kissing Harry on his sofa was delicious. Draco felt shivers go through him as Harry’s hands slid through his hair; as he nibbled at Harry’s ear and drew out a deep groan. They were kissing with their whole bodies, now, and Draco could feel that Harry was hard too.

He felt desire thump through him, but there was anxiety too. He wasn’t quite - he didn’t know if it was because of traditional pureblood ideas and his parents drumming it into him that he couldn’t get someone pregnant, or if it was just his personality, but he didn’t enjoy the idea of sleeping with people early on.

Harry didn’t push when he drew back, only suggested that he make salmon tagliatelle for dinner.

It was delicious. They lingered over dinner, working their way through a bottle of white wine. Draco only thought of the Aurors, and why they’d come, to marvel at how it wasn’t preying on his mind; instead he was teasing Harry about cheating on his athlete’s diet, and telling him about the book he was reading, and trading stories about renovation in a magical home. Harry’s stories of fighting the dark magic in the Black house were eye-popping.

“So tell me about Sirius Black,” Draco said eventually. “I know you knew him, and he was my mum’s cousin, but I don’t really know anything about him. As a person, you know. Or even really how you ended up with this house.”

“I - I’m not really up for talking about that tonight. Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t worry,” Draco said. “I didn’t mean to - to overstep.”

“You didn’t,” Harry told him. “Come on, I have a sofa and a fireplace we can cuddle in front of, if you’re up for that.”

“Soppy,” Draco accused, but he went with Harry happily enough.

It was strange but lovely, being cuddled by Harry. Draco’s whole body was prickling, every inch of skin awake. Harry’s solid warmth, the weight of his arm round Draco’s shoulders and his hand on Draco’s knee and his body, leaning into Draco’s - it should’ve been relaxing. Instead Draco felt like he might vibrate out of his skin. 

It wasn’t bad. It was actually rather wonderful. But he hadn’t realised - even with all the kissing, he hadn’t realised - how much he’d been living life at a remove before Harry, until this moment. Awkward work relationships, and friendships conducted by letter, had been most of his daily contact with people. And now Harry and he were wrapped up in each other. He was soaking in Harry’s warmth and touch and presence, undistracted by kisses. Just - having him there.

Draco relaxed into the contact bit by bit, luxuriating in it. Harry’s smile was a little bemused, though fond, and Draco hid his face in Harry’s shoulder so he wouldn’t have to answer any questions.

Eventually Draco went home, and slept without nightmares.


	4. Chapter 4

By the next day, everyone had moved into ignoring the Quidditch attackers. They weren’t to be given the power to dominate conversation. The _Prophet_ kept reporting on it for the rest of the week, but with the Aurors remaining tight-lipped there wasn’t much to say. 

Besides, in all honesty Draco was completely distracted by the new shape of his days. By Harry.

Their lunches together still happened, and it was still the best part of Draco’s day. But now it involved a lot of kissing. They’d made an agreement that they needed to eat first, or otherwise they’d forget. It was ludicrous, but enjoyably so; they were laughing at themselves even as they gobbled their sandwiches down and threw themselves at each other, making out like teenagers. It was a little ridiculous how much he loved this.

Luckily Harry loved it too. He’d lean over to where Draco was on his stool, and slide a hand through his hair, then curl the hand into a fist. Draco went dizzy with arousal, finding himself held still for the kiss, as Harry kissed and nibbled and sucked. The first time Draco breathed out a moan, Harry went still, then redoubled his efforts, trying to drag more sounds from him.

Draco wasn’t generally the loud type, and he’d grown up in a dorm; he’d learnt silence. But Harry insisted on pulling out those cries, keeping going until they were full-voiced. Until Draco was standing up, dragging him closer, pulling Harry in against him, determined to wreck him in turn.

He’d been a little embarrassed the first time he realised he was hard from it, but then he felt Harry’s hardness against his hip and went almost dizzy with arousal.

He snickered a little as their lunchtime came to an end, watching Harry walk awkwardly away. “Have fun riding your broom.”

“Shut up, Malfoy.”

***

That Saturday something astonishing happened. Harry caught the Snitch nineteen minutes after kick-off. Even the Cannons couldn’t give up a hundred and fifty points in that time.

They’d won.

It was the first time in Merlin knew how long; the only people looking more astonished than the Magpies were the Cannons themselves. Draco ran onto the pitch with John, and Harry landed with a thump and was immediately swallowed by his teammates and manager. When he struggled out of the group hug, Harry’s hair was sticking up all over and he was red in the face and laughing aloud, breathless and thrilled. He looked for Draco and came over immediately, trailing happy teammates like ducklings.

“Congratulations!” Draco said. He didn’t dare touch Harry - even a handshake and his restraint would fall apart, they’d be kissing right there, and he’d been the one who hadn’t wanted to go public. “We should - listen, we should go to the pub - or something better even, you should celebrate, that was all you - ”

“Actually, I was - er.” Harry looked round to check they were out of earshot. “I was - not that, er, you’re a - prize or anything - but I was hoping we could maybe go back to mine instead.”

“Oh.” It was almost soundless, and Harry’s eyes started to crease worriedly behind his glasses before Draco found his voice again. “Yes - yes.”

Harry must’ve made his excuses to his teammates but Draco didn’t pay a blind bit of attention. He was simply standing on the pitch, watching Harry in that hideous bright orange, with his heart pounding and his mind fuzzy, his whole brain taken up with the thought of having sex with Harry.

Oh _Merlin_.

He shut his eyes for a moment, with a sound on the edge of an embarrassing moan. How had he ended up here?

And then they were standing there grinning foolishly at each other, not touching because there were still hundreds of people milling around. Draco’s ears were ringing with the noise. He touched Harry’s arm and then they were gone.

Appearing in the alley near Grimmauld Place was like abruptly going deaf, the silence was so sudden and complete. They both reached to touch their ears, then caught each other in the movement and laughed.

Harry took his hand and they walked to his. Harry was playing with his fingers, stroking them and tracing across his hand. Draco had to struggle not to list drunkenly into his side; the feeling was intense, shivering through him, far more than he could’ve expected.

Harry must know a lot more than he did about how to turn someone on - about sex in general, really. Self-consciousness crept in around the edges of his desire. Other people hadn’t wanted to be around him much, and the people who had - well, a few of them had wanted one-night-stands with a bad boy, and Draco had hated that too much to go with it for the sake of sex. He’d rolled around with Pansy at Hogwarts, and there had been a Dutch student during Healer training for a few weeks, who had liked his hair and hadn’t known about his past.

Harry’s front door opened, and Draco was immediately distracted as Harry pushed him against the wall. Draco pressed forward into the kiss, his body arching off the wall as Harry’s mouth found his jaw and neck. Harry was ravenous, the heat rising between them instantly. It had been a grand total of a week but it felt so much longer that he’d been waiting to do this; Harry’s thigh between his, the muscle of Harry’s back under his hands, Harry’s hands teasing shivers from him as they found the nape of his neck, his chest.

Draco snorted irritation as he tried to grope Harry’s arse through thick material. “This fucking uniform.”

“Disrespecting the team?” Harry teased. “What would John say?”

“John would have sex while wearing a Cannons uniform if he could,” Draco said. “Get rid of it.”

“You first.” Harry went for Draco’s buttons as Draco tried pulling Harry’s jumper over his head. They were instantly tangled and Harry flailed as his jumper covered his face. “Sorry, sorry,” Draco laughed, and pulled it all the way off. “That wasn’t very efficient.”

Harry made an impatient noise and attacked Draco’s shirt with ferocity that was flattering, if not very good for the material. Draco felt a moment of self-consciousness as his chest came under Harry’s view. He’d put on a bit of weight since school - sedentary job and all that - whereas Harry, of course, had the body of a pro athlete. But that melted away under the heat of Harry’s regard.

“God, you’re lovely,” Harry murmured, running his palms up Draco’s sides. “I can’t believe I’m here - I can’t believe you’re letting me - ”

“I can’t believe I am either,” said Draco, and Harry laughed.

“Come on. Let’s go upstairs, I’m not doing this with you in my hallway.”

“In honour of the horror of our teenage selves,” Draco said dryly.

“Right,” Harry said, grinning before he turned to lead him up the stairs. “I want it to be special.”

It could easily have been sardonic, but it wasn’t: it was earnest and unafraid, and Draco felt painful affection thump in his chest. This man was so much braver than he could ever be.

Harry’s bedroom smelled like him, and his bed was a slightly rickety antique four-poster that must’ve already been in the house, and his sheets were a rusty red that made Harry’s green eyes glow. That was the most Draco managed to notice, because Harry was pushing him gently onto his back, and his mouth found Draco’s nipple, and his fingers were learning the lines of Draco’s ribs and the sensitive spots on his lower stomach that made him squirm. Harry took his time exploring, and Draco trembled under the assault of hot mouth and skilled fingers.

Eventually Harry seemed to feel he’d done enough; by then Draco was moaning continually, his skin sensitised as he pulled Harry against him. He tried touching Harry in turn; the desperation was getting to them both, but he was determined not to skimp on the foreplay. He drew some lovely groans from Harry. Draco’s whole body was overheated and he didn’t know what they were going to do exactly, but he wanted more of those sounds. He’d blow Harry tonight, maybe, he thought Harry would let him -

“Fuck me, would you?” Harry murmured. He slid a thigh over Draco’s hip, drawing him into a kiss as they rubbed together through their trousers. “Come on. I want you.”

Draco groaned and hoped Harry understood it was a _yes_. He barely knew what he liked himself; he’d had sex, but not enough of it to experiment much, and Harry seemed very sure. More than that, the idea of Harry wanting his cock, wanting him, made his mouth go dry. 

He could hear his own pulse in his ears as he dropped his hand down to rub Harry’s cock through his trousers, and felt it twitch. He could barely think. Harry was so gorgeous and he smelt so good and oh Merlin they were getting out of their trousers and boxers, he was seeing Harry Potter naked. How was this possible?

And Harry wanted Draco to fuck him. Trusted him that much.

“Listen, listen,” Draco murmured into the heated space between them. His eyes were closed, so he could say it. “I haven’t really - done this a lot. I’m not a virgin, not even close, but - you’re a Quidditch player, and you’re the Chosen One, and you’ve probably - ”

“Not really,” Harry said, and his voice was soft. Draco opened his eyes as he felt Harry touch his face, and found the emerald of Harry’s eyes inches away, and kind. “I’m not much of a one for one-night-stands, you know, and Auror training took up so much time... I’ve had a few girlfriends and boyfriends - and Ginny, of course - but I’m not some kinky acrobat expecting fireworks. Or, I am - but the kind of fireworks you get from it being you and me, together.”

“Soppy,” he grumbled.

“Guilty.” Harry smoothed a thumb along one cheekbone. “You’re blushing.”

Draco growled. “Shut up.”

“Sorry if you were expecting the Boy Who Scored.” Harry’s eyes were bright with laughter, and he burst into giggles at Draco’s expression. Draco laughed too; he’d never laughed this much during sex before, and he liked it.

Their history was always between them, but it could be a bridge as well as a barrier.

Harry scrabbled in his bedside table and handed Draco the lube. He opened his legs and oh, Merlin, Draco spent a long moment focusing on how he needed to not come immediately like a teenager. He stroked his way up Harry’s inner thighs and Harry spread further, gorgeous and responsive. Harry’s cock was hot and hard, the skin of it soft, and Harry made a guttural sound as Draco pulled at it, his whole body rolling into the rhythm Draco set.

And then Draco was reaching under Harry’s balls, rubbing gently at his hole with slick fingers. He pressed two fingers inside and Harry was burning hot, and so tight that Draco wasn’t sure how to move without hurting him. Lust and uncertainty petrified him for a moment before he got it together. He managed to stretch and slick Harry, who was moaning and rocking his hips into the motion. Draco still wasn’t sure of himself, so he just matched Harry’s movements, hoping he could get Harry to make more of those mind-melting sounds.

“God,” Harry wheezed. His face was red, and his stomach was clenching. “Come on, fuck me. Hands and knees?”

Draco shrugged a little helplessly. Harry seemed to take in his expression. “All right. I say hands and knees, personally.”

And once Draco had Harry like that in front of him, arched back and muscle and the shadow between his arsecheeks, he entirely agreed.

He was going to do it wrong. He was in his twenties and should be entirely au fait with things like this, but the nerves hit him like a slap in the face. 

Harry looked back at the pause, and Draco knew he’d seen his expression. “Hey, are you all right?”

Draco huffed an anxious laugh. “Better than, really.”

“Yeah?” Harry shifted round onto his knees to take in his expression. 

“Yeah.” He couldn’t quite make himself admit his nerves, but he knew Harry had already guessed. So he kissed him, then gently pushed Harry back to his knees.

And then he was taking hold of his cock and Harry’s thighs were spread, and he was pushing inside Harry Potter. Disbelief and lust and affection all flooded up inside him; he felt vulnerable enough himself, but Harry inviting him inside like this made Draco’s heart squeeze. And Merlin - he thrust again, choking on lust, as Harry squeezed around him. Hot and tight and intense; Draco kept moving, blind with desire. And Harry was moving now too, finding his own rhythm for Draco to follow.

Harry was moaning, sweet and low and responsive. Draco lowered his mouth to Harry’s shoulder, kissing along the sweaty skin, finding the meeting of neck and shoulder and sucking. Every movement got smaller and sharper as they rocked closer to the finish; Draco fumbled for Harry’s cock and got an amazing, breathless sound out of Harry as he took hold, twisting his wrist at the head.

Draco felt his orgasm approaching, and redoubled his efforts, determined to pull Harry over the edge with him. He couldn’t hold out; orgasm seized him, shaking him, emptying him out. Harry’s orgasm seemed triggered by his: he was still coming as Harry seized up beneath him, crying out.

Draco managed to stay upright long enough to pull out, and then they collapsed together. Draco pulled Harry in, enjoying being pressed together down the length of their bodies: Harry’s bony bits and swells of muscle and warmth. The sweet curve of his arse, as Draco went for a cheeky squeeze, and the drowsy splutter of a laugh against his chest that elicited from Harry.

He hadn’t expected this. To feel so connected.

***

**December**

They spent Sunday together. On Sunday night Draco went home; he wasn’t prepared to arrive at work together yet.

“They might have put it together, y’know,” Harry said as he left, wincing a little. He looked embarrassed to bring it up. “We did leave together.”

“I know. I just… if they ask about it, you can decide what to tell them. I just don’t want to talk about it yet. Not with people I don’t know.”

“I get it.” 

Draco kissed him quickly, stealing his warmth, and Flooed home with it still there. He felt the afterglow of Harry’s touch as armour from the world. He wanted to put off their relationship being truly public for as long as he could - he wasn’t looking forward to the letters he’d get. But Harry would be there at his back.

The problem was that when the Aurors came back, Harry was at practice. Draco was alone in his office.

“Mr Malfoy. Good to see you again.”

Draco’s back went rigid. “I - yes. Hello.” He was grasping for words, trying to find the right reaction under their sharp eyes. “Nothing happened this weekend, right? No attacks on any games? Congratulations - you must be doing something right.”

“Possibly. Or possibly they’re just preparing something big.”

“Or they’ve got their guard up now we’ve realised none of it was an accident,” agreed the man. “And they’ll be back twice as strong.”

“I suppose the Auror programme doesn’t select for optimism,” Draco said. Neither laughed.

“Can I do something for you? I wasn’t expecting to see you again, to be honest.”

“We wanted a quick word,” said the man. “We asked you about what you might’ve heard, and you talked about what you heard in the pub. Hanging around with Quidditch players - a little surprising, we thought, but it makes sense given you’re a sports Healer. But it seems like you’ve got your ear even more to the ground than we’d expected. Really - _entwined_ with them all, aren’t you?”

Draco’s throat worked. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

“No?” said the woman. “There’s a fascinating blind item in the _Prophet_ ’s gossip column this morning. ‘Which beloved Quidditch player is dancing with the devil? Did he make a deal with that devil to pull an astonishing win out of the bag, or is he just that good?’”

Draco scowled. “He’s just that good.”

“Which begs the question why he’s with you,” she said. Her partner looked a little startled. “Are you admitting the nature of your relationship with Mr Potter, then?”

“That’s personal.”

“We spoke to your teammates, Mr Malfoy,” said the man. Draco wished to Merlin he could remember their names. “They felt fairly strongly that you two were an item.”

“We are.” He stood with his mouth pinched shut round his disgust. He couldn’t try to be reasonable just now, and to see why they were just doing their jobs or any of that. He hated them, and having them in his office was scraping him raw.

The man huffed out a sigh. “I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere here, Penelope.”

“Not today. All right, Mr Malfoy, you can stop looking so sour. We’ll be on our way.”

They left and his body sagged from its tension like his strings had been cut. “See you again soon.”

***

“The Aurors came back.”

Harry’s head jerked up from where he was chopping bell peppers. “I didn’t see them.”

“They just talked to me.” Draco hugged himself, folding himself into a tight column by the kitchen door. Harry came towards him, looking like he was going for a hug, and Draco unfolded himself and paced past him instead. He was too restless to want to be grounded by Harry’s touch.

“Oh - don’t worry, Draco. I know it’s difficult but I’m sure they’re not suspicious of you, they’ve got no reason to be.”

“A person with a bad name is already half hanged, did you ever hear that saying?”

“Then at some point one of your ancestors should have changed their name so it wouldn’t literally have ‘bad’ in it.”

Draco made a disgusted noise even as he laughed a little. “Sure, right. I just… I was an idiot, I should’ve just acknowledged that we’re - well, going out. I just made myself seem suspicious. They asked about it and I made them drag it out of me.”

Harry frowned a little. “Yeah?”

“It’s not - I’m not embarrassed or ashamed, anything but. I just didn’t want to talk about it with them, and I didn’t want it to be public yet, and I didn’t want them to make it all grotty and grimy and horrible by implying I was - I don’t know, using you. Or using this. And now I’ve just made myself look like a suspicious ex-Death Eater who can’t be trusted.” He let his head drop back on his neck, swiping his hand through his hair in a gesture he’d picked up from Harry. “Which I suppose I am.”

“No you’re not. Come on, don’t be silly or - or self-pitying.”

Draco winced theatrically. “Fair, but brutal.”

“Sorry.”

“Ha. Why don’t you make it up to me?”

Harry smiled, moving in slowly like a predator. Draco stood there and let him come, raking over him with his eyes: darkest hair and bright eyes and collarbone and long thighs he was going to have wrapped around him. Delicious.

When they came up for air, it was almost ten. Harry ended up chucking the half-chopped onions, too hungry to wait for proper food, and grabbed something that just needed a quick Hermia charm.

Draco laughed lazily. “I’m gonna ruin your athlete’s diet, you know. Not to mention your sleep schedule.”

Harry looked up with dark eyes and a swollen mouth, and let his gaze drip down Draco’s skin, lingering on the bruises he’d left with his mouth. Draco had to fight back a sudden, silly blush.

“We’ll have to see what I can ruin in return.”

***

That week was a blur of work finished as fast as he could, and time with Harry. The evenings stretched out into days then vanished like smoke, as they talked and read and spent hours in bed. The first two days Draco was exhausted at work, before they caught on and started to go to bed early. They needed time for the last go-round, with Harry working himself slowly back onto Draco’s cock and Draco groaning into Harry’s shoulder, overwhelmed, before they fell into sleep. 

Draco was developing a bit of an oral fixation. The way Harry’s eyes would go a little shocked when Draco dropped to his knees in front of an armchair or pushed Harry against a wall; the weight and warmth of his cock stretching his lips; and best of all, the sounds Harry made, groaning and desperate and glorious, sending pride and happiness and lust all through him. It was his new hobby. His favourite thing to do.

And Harry was a very generous lover, so if Draco didn’t get himself off during, he’d soon find himself with Harry leaving lovebites on his chest and thighs, spreading Draco’s legs to explore him, making unbearable eye-contact before he finally wrapped his hand or his mouth round Draco’s cock and took him over the edge.

Harry bought pineapple juice for them both one lunchtime. Draco stared, a little surprised, and then Harry gave him a slow smile, tongue caught between his teeth. Draco felt himself flush and Harry laughed.

“Shut up!”

“I’ll make sure you’re loud enough for both of us.”

Having Harry swallow was Draco’s new favourite thing. He didn’t know what he was going to put into his next letter to Pansy, let alone his mother. Nothing going on in his life right now was ready for them.

He might tell Greg. He had to tell someone about how great things were. He’d tried telling Viviane, when he was briefly at home before Harry got there, but she hadn’t seemed especially interested. She seemed torn between liking Harry, as she had immediately, and the occasional surge of jealousy. She’d sink little needles into their feet, then climb up the bed, seeking attention. Then her purr would rumble out as she closed her eyes, enjoying having four hands to fuss over her.

It was so strange, to be this happy. He’d almost forgotten how. 

And to be trusted in this way. He still turned his left arm inwards instinctively when he was shirtless, made sure the Mark scar was flat against the mattress when they were lounging in his bed. But Harry knew what he’d done. It made his breath catch in his chest, an unexpected storm of emotion, when Harry fell asleep after a mid-afternoon round of sex. His face was peaceful, and his scar was showing. Draco stroked his hair with the Marked arm and Harry didn’t stir. Trusting him.

He’d have to make sure he was worthy of it.

That Sunday there was another game. The Cannons didn’t win that one, and for the first time, Harry didn’t catch the Snitch either. He’d been doing incredibly well for a first-season Seeker, though, and the Comets had a great Seeker.

Draco liked to think it was down to him a little, too: the distractions Harry wore under his clothes, and his gaze from the stands. But he kept that to himself, since as it turned out, there wasn’t an opportunity to flirt with Harry after all.

The Aurors arrived fifteen minutes before the end of the game, appearing next to him in the staff row on the stands. He glanced over at the movement, and went rigid. “What’s happened?”

“What you think.” The handsome male Auror looked tired. It was the same pair as before. “We’re not here to see you specifically, Mr Malfoy - it’s in case there’s a second attack in a day.”

“Has that happened before?”

“No, but today was different from before as well - nasty. A Bludger hit one of the Chasers and it squirted acid at her.”

“Oh Merlin. What - ”

“Sorry, Malfoy, but I need to focus. So does my partner.”

Draco nodded. “So do I, really.”

He spent the rest of the game taut with fear, vibrating every time a ball was caught or swerved too close to another player. He couldn’t protect Harry, or any of the others; only try to fix it if something happened. His wand was in his hand, fingernails sinking into his palm.

The Comets’ Seeker caught the Snitch, and Draco felt selfish relief before the disappointment hit: what if that ball had been booby-trapped too? When the players came down Draco hopped the barrier and headed for Harry immediately; he couldn’t make himself pretend casualness and wait.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he reached Harry.

“Yeah, I mean you know I hate to lose but there’s no shame in losing to Kim - what?” Harry interrupted himself as he saw Draco’s face. “Is that not what you meant? Are _you_ okay?”

Draco stared at him, not knowing what to say. He saw the moment Harry’s eyes flickered up over Draco’s shoulder as he saw the Aurors. He went grey.

“No one’s dead,” Draco said quickly. “There was another attack - acid in a Bludger.”

“Do you know who was hit?”

Draco shook his head. “They were here to check on things - they didn’t want to answer a lot of questions.”

“Fair enough. Can you wait for me? I want to talk to them and I know you don’t like them.”

“That’s not - the man seems harmless,” Draco protested, a little weakly. Harry gave him a sceptical look. But Draco didn’t want to let Harry out of his sight just now; he barely wanted him out of his reach. So he followed Harry over to the Aurors, though he hung back a little.

Harry’s voice was uneven with distress, and it tightened Draco’s chest. He barely followed the conversation: St Mungo’s, crowd panicked, none of the spectators or players in critical condition. Maybe some new leads, if they were lucky. Security for all the games and players from now on. There were more details and discussions, and they were important, but Draco hadn’t ever been great at the big picture. He wanted to be better at it, but right now he didn’t have the energy to focus on being less selfish, to paying attention to the wider world; he was too busy with Harry’s pain.

“Malfoy,” said Penelope, and Draco flinched, looking away from Harry.

“Yes?”

“You’ve not heard any rumblings about this? None of your old mates mentioning anything?”

“You’ve asked me that before,” he said, trying to keep his voice low and calm. “More than once. Why don’t you assume that if I do, I’ll come to you?”

“You didn’t want to share perfectly innocent information about who you’re… spending time with.” Her voice dripped with implication.

“Because it’s personal!”

“We can come back to him if we need to, Penelope,” said the man, at the same time as Draco continued.

“Why d’you care so much what I do? I’ve kept my nose clean since the end of the war, it’s been years - ”

“Because you’re here. You’re connected to pro Quidditch, and whatever remnants of the Death Eaters remain. You’re connected to Voldemort.”

Draco flinched at the name, and hated himself. Harry interrupted before it could go any further.

“Dan’s right; you can come back to us if you need to talk to us. To any of us. We’re gonna head to the pub, if that’s all right. I need to see my friends and get drunk.”

The Aurors both nodded. “We’ll probably be at practice this week, keeping an eye on things. Some other Aurors, if not us,” said Penelope.

“Wonderful,” Draco said, doing his best impression of his mother. “We’ll look forward to it. Goodbye.”

He offered Harry his hand with his mother’s elegant flourish, and caught laughter in Harry’s eyes. Harry took it, and they Apparated.

The atmosphere in the pub that night jangled with pain and rage. Draco settled into the corner of a booth next to Harry. He was determined to be supportive, but he wasn’t in the mood to speak to people he didn’t know. He wasn’t going to try and commiserate with people whose community was being attacked by Death Eaters; he didn’t have the right.

Harry spoke to various people who came to join him in the booth for a while, or say hello. He shared a hug with Ginny, and she and Draco nodded at each other before she went home with a teammate. Draco wished she’d stay - she was at least someone he knew now, someone he could talk to without feeling like it was all under false pretences. The Death Eater playing at being a sports Healer.

Harry laughed sometimes; he wasn’t crying in his beer or knocking over tables, nothing close. But Draco still thrummed with awareness of his pain. It reminded him of school, those last couple of years before the Dark Lord had taken power and Harry had vanished. The shadow in Harry’s eyes, no matter what else was going on.

Draco drank his way steadily through four glasses of Icewhiskey, trying not hear the Auror’s voice in his head. _You’re connected to Voldemort._

Around nine o’clock they were alone for a minute, and Harry said in an undertone, “I feel a bit ridiculous being so upset.”

“What?”

“Well, you know. I didn’t really know that Chaser at all. And it’s - I’m not gonna be reckless, I swear, but it’s hard to be that scared of Death Eaters for myself given… everything. I think they’d have come after the Cannons already if I was the goal. And it’s… I mean I was in the middle of the war. This is horrible but it doesn’t compare. Why am I - why am I like this?” He gestured at himself, a little drunkenly, and Draco’s heart contracted in his chest, tender and painful.

“Of course you are,” Draco said. “Of _course_. This is - it’s terrible. What’s happened to these people. And you fought a war, and you saved everyone from the Dark Lord, and you decided to be a Quidditch player. The world was meant to be safe now, right? The darkness wasn’t following you around and you didn’t have to chase it. And you still don’t, but it’s… it must be hard to believe that.”

Harry kissed him, sudden and fervent. Draco parted his lips and found Harry taking his mouth, insistent but not sexual. Draco blinked at him when he drew back.

“What was that for?”

Harry smiled crookedly, sooty hair falling over his face, and he was so handsome Draco couldn’t believe it. “For understanding.”

“Of course… Oh,” Draco realised, noticing a few mutters around the pub. “People are going to know we’re going out.”

“This is a Quidditch player pub. There’ll be more rumours but no one here would confirm anything to the press.” Harry hesitated, eyes on Draco’s face. “Is - was that okay? Sorry, I just - it slipped my mind for a second, I just needed - ”

Draco kissed him, taking his time with it. “Don’t worry.”

“You wanna come back to mine?”

“Yeah.”

They both stumbled a little on the way back to Grimmauld Place, a little drunk. They went up to Harry’s room immediately, cocooning themselves inside. Draco undressed, finding the pyjamas he’d left here after a third night in Harry’s Snitches pyjamas. He got distracted before he could put on the top half. When Harry came back from the bathroom, Draco was kneeling shirtless on Harry’s bed, looking down at the white scar that was all that was left of the Mark.

In the dimness of candlelight, you could barely see it; it wasn’t like the blackness that had been there once. It was only when you touched that you felt the unmistakable raised lines of scar tissue that had been left when the Dark Lord fell.

“Draco?”

Draco looked up at him. “Can you feel the Mark?”

“What - what d’you mean?” Harry came and knelt in front of him, their heads close together.

“I’ve got the Dark Mark. I know you can - can feel Voldemort’s presence. Is it still there?”

“No!” Harry looked horrified, shaking his head.

Draco shook his head too, his voice cracking as he spoke. “No, t-try. Don’t just tell me what - ” He grabbed Harry’s wrist, pulling his hand to touch Draco’s forearm. “See if you can feel it.”

Harry pulled his hand back like he’d been burnt and Draco crumpled backwards, drawing his arm in tight so Harry couldn’t see the Mark. Harry said, “I’m not - ”

Then he seemed to take in Draco’s expression. He took Draco’s left hand in his right, stretching his arm out gently, then touched him again. Put his palm against Draco’s branded skin.

Draco went breathless and stunned at the sight of Harry’s hand touching him there. He hadn’t let Harry do that before; he’d kept his arm facing down or away, even when naked, by instinct and ingrained habit. Harry stroked the scar gently, seeming mesmerised, face tense - but not horrified. Draco’s chest felt hollow; his insides seemed scoured by hot winds.

Harry closed his eyes, and drew in a breath, then another. Then he opened his eyes again.

“No,” Harry said quietly, and he didn’t sound like he’d thought it was a foregone conclusion after all. “It’s just skin.”

Draco collapsed forward, pressing his head into Harry’s chest. He wasn’t quite crying, but he could feel his shoulders shaking against Harry. Harry bent in around him, pressing his face against Draco’s back. It could’ve been uncomfortable but it wasn’t: there was sheer, animal comfort in being folded into each other, Harry all around him. Not running away.

Draco folded himself in around Harry as they fucked that night, wanting to hear him breathe, to feel every sound of pleasure Harry made. They fell asleep that way.

***

When they arrived at work the next week the grounds were crawling with Aurors. Draco hadn’t expected half so many. They didn’t seem to be interested in him so he went into his office and shut the door and tried to think about other things.

He needed to find out what kind of acid had been used in that weekend’s attack, so he could be ready with an antidote. This job was horrible sometimes.

“Why are there so many of them?” he said to Harry at lunchtime. “I thought it’d be just, er, Penelope and Dan.”

“You know them?” Harry said, sounding confused.

“Not really, I’ve just - oh, you mean - ah. Well, er, honestly when they first introduced themselves I wasn’t really listening, and I don’t know their last names.”

Harry burst into delighted laughter. “Draco! I thought I was the one who was bad with names!”

“You are,” Draco told him. “This is a minor aberration for me, it’s a way of life for you.”

“Uh-huh. Then why do I know it’s Penelope Thursday and Dan Hanchard?”

“You trained to be an Auror for three years! You must’ve met current Aurors at least a few times!”

Harry laughed. “Yeah, fair enough. Actually, Dan was in the DA with me - he was a year ahead of us at Hogwarts, d’you remember?”

“Oh - yeah, vaguely. Hufflepuff, though, so…” Draco shrugged expressively and Harry rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t know him well, but I always liked him. And he’s a great Auror.”

Draco looked at Harry’s bright smile and thought sourly of Auror Dan’s handsome face. “I always thought he was a pillock.”

“...I thought you didn’t know him?”

“...I didn’t. I just thought he was a pillock.”

Harry looked at him with a puzzled little smile, then shrugged. “Well, he doesn’t think the same about you.”

“No?”

“Well, y’know, I was talking to them a bit. And they know me a bit, so they told me some of what’s going on. It’s pretty clearly an inside job - I mean they couldn’t confirm that, but I asked since it’s been different changes to the balls, and I could tell they think so too. Someone who can get access to pro equipment - maybe someone who works at the Ministry in Sports and Games, for the League. Or someone who can get into the League headquarters, I mean they’re just in the Ministry…”

“Harry. Focus.”

“Right! I’m not investigating this,” Harry said, clearly reciting, “as Hermione’s told me. Anyway, he said a couple of people were looking your way but he doesn’t think so.”

“He wouldn’t tell you if he was.”

“Mmm - maybe, but when I asked about you, he did go out of his way to say he didn’t think you were a good suspect. He thinks you’re a waste of time.”

“I’m touched.” He rather was: he hadn’t expected Harry to ask about him, knowing Harry didn’t worry about the Aurors the way Draco did. “Well, good. But why are there so many of them everywhere?”

Harry shrugged, taking a gulp of water. “I think it’s partly to prevent public panic, honestly. They’re around, practically shadowing us during the day, and the _Prophet_ will report that instead of what-ifs about the entire League being blown to bits. There won’t be as many as this for long - they can’t support it, they’ve got other crimes to investigate and I think there’re more leads inside the Ministry itself. But Dan said he’ll be around, and maybe a few others. There’s a lot of planning that goes into these attacks, and a lot of timing - they’re hoping they can find something, as well as just keeping an eye on us.”

Draco nodded. “Back to mine tonight?”

“Course. I miss Viviane.”

Draco snorted. “Cat thief.”

“She loves me.”

“God knows why.”

***

They spent the evening together again. He and Harry spent a lot of time together, and it was a bit unnerving sometimes; he’d been used to being alone most of the time. In some ways it was a glorious return to form; growing up he’d always liked spending a lot of time around people and being the centre of attention, and he’d only started to avoid it in sixth year - and then only because he’d needed to. It was like being given something back.

Still, he’d spent a lot of time alone in the last few years; it had been hard to make friends. And honestly, he’d been hiding from the world, and he’d needed alone time to recover from the emotional difficulties of being out in it. But being around Harry was simple, and maybe even as soothing as being alone. It was almost strange how easy it felt - how well they seemed to fit.

At work he was - if not happy, at least grateful to have an office and a reason to be busy with his work. The Aurors were around in the distance when he spoke to the players, but they didn’t speak to him.

And he and Harry were getting closer. Harry told him some things about what he’d seen when he defeated Voldemort - what death had looked like for him.

“King’s Cross?” Draco repeated. His voice wobbled; even he wasn’t sure if it was with numinous fear, or laughter.

“Of course,” said Harry. “Platform Nine and Three Quarters… it’s where I went on to a new stage, you know. Out of my childhood, into this world.”

“So it was… you could’ve got the train with Dumbledore, you think?”

“To the next new world,” Harry said, nodding. “But I decided to stay here.”

At that point Draco entirely embarrassed himself as a Malfoy and an Englishman: he threw himself at Harry, wordless. Harry hugged him back, fierce and unashamed. The tremors were still shuddering down Draco’s back as he found Harry’s mouth with his. He slid his hand up Harry’s chest, keeping it there as they kissed. He felt Harry’s chest rise and fall more quickly as they moved together; he could feel Harry’s heartbeat as it got faster. Draco was drunk on Harry’s living heat around him, Harry’s cries as Draco fucked him, Harry’s clinging to him, leaving bruises on his skin. Fingerprints in purple that Draco would wear happily under his clothes for the next few days: proof that Harry was there, and alive, and wanted him.

***

On Thursday afternoon a Patronus appeared: a silver gecko. It spoke with John’s voice. “Draco, can you come out? Potter’s injured his arm.”

Draco bit the inside of his cheek and told himself very firmly not to panic. John didn’t sound panicked, or even especially anxious. He wasn’t going to embarrass himself. 

Harry was sitting on the pitch, scowling. His wrist was swelling up but it didn’t seem broken, and Harry didn’t seem in much pain: mostly he was complaining, calling himself an idiot, and telling the other players clustered around to get back to practicing. They blithely ignored him and kept telling stories of gruesome injuries and poking at his wrist.

“What happened?” Draco asked. He was interested, but it probably wasn’t relevant; what it really did was help ensure Harry stayed still and distracted while Draco worked his way through the diagnostic spells.

“It’s a sprain,” he told Harry and John and the shamelessly earwigging players. “I’ve got some good charms for it. He should try not to do anything too dramatic with it for a few days, but it’ll be mostly over in a few hours. The last little bit of healing takes the longest, that’s all.”

“So he’s out of this weekend’s game?” said John.

“That’s probably best,” Draco said, and refused to think about whether he was influenced by the thought of Harry safely away from the pitch. Harry made a disgusted noise.

“Come back to my office,” Draco said. “I’ve got some charms for you.”

“So I hear,” murmured the second-string Keeper. Harry flushed charmingly.

Draco bustled around his office, examining Harry’s wrist more carefully before he cast a series of spells to heal the ligament and reduce the inflammation as much as he could. “All right, that’s it,” he said. “But you’re not perfectly healed yet. Light tasks to keep it mobile are good, but no heavy lifting or repetitive movements.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asked with a smutty smirk and an unmistakeable gesture.

“No wanking, Mr Potter.”

“Ohhh. Healer’s orders?”

Draco cocked his head at him and Harry chuckled. “Oh, er, I guess wizards don’t have an equivalent for ‘doctor’s orders’.”

“Nope. I can give Healer’s orders?”

“And they have to be obeyed,” Harry said with fake solemnity.

“Wow. Why did I ever want to be a Quidditch player?”

“You wanted to be a Quidditch player?”

“Yeah, once. When I was a kid, mostly. Up until… maybe third year at school? You rather crushed my dreams with the Quidditch Cup that year, and anyway after that I wanted to be a curse-breaker, and then a journalist.”

“Huh… I never really thought about it, when I was that age,” Harry said. “I thought about being an Auror when I was fourteen or fifteen, and then I just stuck with it.”

“I suppose you had other things to think about,” said Draco. “But look at us now.”

“Right,” Harry said, and kissed him. Draco snickered into it.

“You’re so cheesy.” 

Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m injured. Indulge me.”

He gave in. It was close to the end of the day anyway, and they left together, heading out via the pitch.

“You all right, Harry?” Dan the handsome Auror jogged over. Draco scowled a little. “I saw you go down.”

“Yeah, Draco fixed me up right as rain.”

“Great.” Dan didn’t look away from Harry, and Harry was smiling up at him. Draco felt a twinge of envy, and knowing it was ridiculous didn’t make it any better. He was fairly sure Dan was Muggleborn; he had the right accent. Looking at them both, Auror and ex-Auror, handsome and brave, he remembered the “Healer’s orders” joke that he hadn’t understood. Harry and this man understood each other; they spoke the same language. Why would Harry want to make the effort to understand his?

Draco scowled at his own thoughts, annoyed with himself. His nerves over the Aurors’ presence and his insecurities over Harry might be hard to fight, but he wasn’t going to let them combine in such a stupid way.

“Are you okay?” said Harry.

“I’m fine,” Draco said, finding a smile. “Let’s go. Viviane misses you.”

“His cat,” Harry explained to Dan, laughing. “See you tomorrow!”

“Oh - yeah - we’re gonna send an Auror home with you, Harry. Outside your place - or his place, I guess - don’t worry. Just to keep an eye on you.”

Harry’s face screwed up in momentary annoyance, but he nodded. “Fine. I’ll let the Auror know if I leave.”

“Are you giving any of the other players Auror escorts?” Draco said.

“Not for now, no. We don’t have the manpower, and anyway - ”

“None of the attacks have happened at players’ homes,” Draco finished. He didn’t trust himself to say anything more. He Disapparated.

Harry followed, and Draco busied himself with saying hello to Viviane, hoping Harry wouldn’t try and talk about it. The fear of having Aurors watching him again was sour in his mouth; the memory of Aurors tearing apart the Manor after the Dark Lord’s defeat played behind his eyes every time he blinked. He couldn’t talk it about it with Harry; he didn’t know what he might say. 

Harry seemed to decide not to push it, thankfully. After some endless seconds, he came and tickled behind Viviane’s ears. She pushed her head against his hands, purring. “D’you want to go for a walk, later? Or play checkers?”

“Checkers,” Draco decided, not wanting to leave the way open for a deep conversation. He sent Harry a private smile, hoping he’d understand the gratitude.

They made each other laugh all evening, and Harry was kind about Draco’s cooking before they both ended up on the sofa with Quidditch magazines. It was comforting, but not enough; Draco wanted to feel connected, to know Harry was right there with him.

He dropped his magazine, and when Harry looked over at the sound, Draco drew him in for a kiss. Harry came willingly, and before long Draco was on top of Harry on the sofa, heat rising between them. Harry’s mouth was hot and sweet, and his hands in Draco’s hair sent tingles of pleasure down Draco’s limbs, and they could easily get each other off like this. But he made himself say it, muttering it into the heated air between them.

“D’you wanna fuck me?”

“Yes,” Harry breathed.

“I mean me on the bottom,” Draco said, just to be sure there was no possible doubt. Harry laughed and Draco felt his cheeks heat.

“Yeah, I got that. And _yeah_.”

Harry seemed to sense his uncertainty; Draco supposed he hadn’t made that hard. He pushed himself off the sofa, Draco shifting with him to follow his movements, then led Draco to the bedroom. Harry pulled his own t-shirt over his head, and kicked his jeans off. Draco snickered as Harry tripped over himself getting rid of socks and jeans together.

Harry huffed. “C’mere, you,” he murmured. His hands stroked up Draco’s back as he took off Draco’s jumper. Draco’s nipples hardened in the slight chill, and Harry took advantage, lips and teeth and hands plucking at him like strings, drawing out sounds that got louder and louder.

It was all a heated blur, and then he was on his back, spreading bare thighs for Harry, tipping up his arse to improve the angle. There was a moment of worry, and he glanced down, then laughed a little. “Your glasses are steaming up,” he said, and reached up to take them off Harry’s face, dropping them beside him on the bedside table with a Muggle clatter of plastic. Harry blinked at him, short-sighted and sweet, and kissed his thigh.

Draco gave a pleased sigh as Harry kissed his cock, mouth opening to suck at the head. Then he felt Harry rub at his hole - not pushing inside yet, just stroking, bring every nerve ending alive. He squirmed at the sensations, feeling his thighs tense, and Harry made a pleased sound.

He’d done this before, but only once or twice; he’d got nervous, and hadn’t enjoyed it as much through the nerves. He hoped Harry knew what this meant. Maybe Harry was too brave to feel worried about getting fucked, or just better at embracing pleasure than Draco was.

He didn’t think so, though. He thought Harry understood.

Harry murmured something, and then said his name. Draco looked down, and Harry met his eyes. The gaze shot straight to Draco’s cock with its unmistakable intent, and then slick fingers were pressing inside Draco, opening him up.

Draco wanted to perform well, to be appealing and sexy, but every thought dropped out of his head as Harry fingered him. It wasn’t just the sheer fact of having Harry stroke and tease him inside; it was the knowledge that he was being prepared for Harry’s cock. 

Harry added another finger, and mouthed at Draco’s balls and cock and thigh, teasing him with it. Draco’s hips rolled as he groaned. Harry paused on a particularly sensitive bit of inner thigh, sucking at it, and Draco moaned, his head thumping onto the pillow as his back arched.

Then Harry made a dismayed sound, drawing back, and Draco heaved his shoulders off the bed to frown at him, disgruntled. “I’ll bruise you,” Harry murmured. “You’re so pale…”

He didn’t mind that. He imagined walking round at work tomorrow, knowing he had that mark of their connection on his body, wearing Harry’s desire on his skin. The Aurors’ mistrust wouldn’t be able to touch him.

“That’s okay,” he said, letting his thighs fall further open in illustration. “I want you to.”

Harry gave a low groan that was almost a growl, then fell on him, sucking hard on sensitive skin. The edge of teeth had Draco clawing at the mattress, unsure if he wanted to stop Harry or if he wanted to ride the edge of this til he came.

It didn’t matter; Harry’s lips left his skin, his fingers withdrew, and Draco reached for him. Harry came, his eyes dark and mouth swollen, and then he was over Draco, his body bracketing Draco’s, and his cock pushing inside.

Draco felt himself clench round Harry’s cock, stunned, and then he relaxed and Harry was all the way in. He was panting helplessly already, chest heaving as Harry found his rhythm. It was slow at first, imperfect, but the intensity of the moment made up for that: both of them breathing together, and Draco raising his hips further, opening himself up for Harry. Draco stroked over Harry’s narrow, powerful shoulders, the brown nipples and the place at the base of Harry’s throat where Draco could see his heartbeat.

And then Harry found the right angle and Draco made a sound like Viviane in heat. 

Harry’s eyes flashed, and he stayed there, moving in long, sweet strokes. Draco gave choked-off moans that became full-throated cries as Harry kept going, refusing to let him hide or downplay his pleasure. Harry’s hand began working his cock and Draco found his hips jerking, overstimulated, as he danced between Harry’s hand and Harry’s cock.

It couldn’t last; he couldn’t hold out against pleasure like this. His muscles tightened until they hurt, he was clawing at Harry’s back, and then he was coming, trembling as it pulsed through him, tightening him round Harry’s cock, making every nerve more sensitive as Harry stroked him through it. Draco groaned, breathless, and Harry let go, kissing his cheek instead.

“Yeah, yeah,” Draco wheezed. “I just - Merlin. Come on, keep fucking me, I want you to - to - ”

He abruptly ran out of shamelessness but Harry clearly knew what he meant. He was moving inside Draco again, thrusting harder now that Draco had come. He was utterly gorgeous, all instinct as he rushed towards orgasm, a beautiful combination of power and helplessness: unable to stop moving, fucking Draco boneless. 

Harry came almost silently, eyes shut, hips pumping as he fucked Draco through it. He dropped down on top of Draco when he was done, panting into his neck, and Draco curled arms and legs around him, holding him close.

***

The next morning he woke to a pile of poison pen letters. He burnt most of them without reading them, but there were four Howlers. Harry stumbled into the room bleary-eyed, drawn by the noise: _you’re just trying to hide your wickedness by using Harry Potter as a human shield_ overlapping with _Death Eater slut, they’ll find you out and you’ll go to Azkaban_ mixing with _you’ve got blood on your hands_. The last was just howled obscenities. Draco was crouched against the kitchen door, hands over his ears, while Viviane yowled beside him, fur fluffed out, eyes slits of protective fury.

Harry cast a spell Draco didn’t recognise and the Howlers burst into flame. Draco’s shoulders dropped. “Thanks.”

“Christ, Draco,” Harry said, looking at the red, charred remnants of the Howlers. “We should tell the Aurors. They’ll filter your post for you.”

“No,” snapped Draco.

“Draco, don’t be silly.”

“Don’t patronise me. You’ve no idea what it was like after the war - they terrified me - they tore everything apart, they threatened us - ”

“Okay! I’m sorry. Let’s not fight about this, we have to be at work soon.”

Draco scowled, feeling dismissed, but agreed.

The Aurors’ presence at the stadium made him as claustrophobic as ever. He hid in his office again, trying to concentrate on how they might find something here, and arrest the attackers before they could hurt anyone else. It didn’t work; he didn’t think they’d find anything in the stadium. Focussing on what he was doing and ignore their presence in the building worked better, and before long he’d managed to sink into his work. When the door to his office opened without warning just before lunch, he jumped and knocked over a cup of dry potions ingredients.

“You scared me!”

“What a shame,” said the Auror, smiling. He was tall, with brown hair and a virulent grin.

“We’re so sorry,” agreed his brunette partner. Draco didn’t recognise either of them. He stood, eyes on them, hand clenching round the space he wanted his wand to be. “We don’t like to scare dark wizards, you know, it makes them do stupid things. Like draw their wands.”

“I haven’t,” Draco said, holding his hands out to his sides. “And I’m not a dark wizard.”

“Ha! So you never used an Unforgivable Curse on anyone?”

“I was coerced, it’s in my official testimony - ”

“That’s what your daddy said. Both times,” said the woman. She was circling the table, and Draco couldn’t stop himself retreating. He realised too late he was being herded into a corner, away from his supplies and store cupboard. “Doesn’t seem all that plausible, to be honest.”

“Don’t be mean,” said the man. “Using words he doesn’t understand, like ‘honest’.” His smile was becoming a sneer.

Draco swallowed. Panic was rising in his chest. He didn’t know where this was going, but the open hostility was exactly what he’d feared. What if they planted something, or said he’d attacked them, or - 

“Nothing to say?” said the man.

He shook his head.

“Coward,” the woman said.

Well, that much was true.

“Look,” the woman said. “We’re not here to hurt you. Unlike the Death Eaters, we don’t torture people for fun. Or even information.” She didn’t sound pleased about that, and so her reassurance was only making Draco’s stomach twist further. “If you got caught up in something, we can protect you. But no one’s successfully attacked pro Quidditch games in a very long time, despite any unrest. The last time someone managed to bring Death Eaters where none had been, and people got badly hurt? That was you. And what a surprise, here you are again.”

“And this time you’re fucking the Boy Who Lived,” said the man. “Planning to hide behind him until it gets to him, are we? Or do you just get off on it?”

Draco wanted to shout at him not to talk about Harry; that’d be what Harry would do for him, he thought. But he couldn’t talk, throat seizing up as the Aurors moved in.

“If you just tell us, this’ll go a lot easier. Or d’you want us to arrest you first? Maybe we can put you in the cell next your daddy.”

“Is that Mark on your arm black again?” the man asked.

“What?” Draco said, stunned.

“Come on. You’re still connected to You-Know-Who, you’d know if they’re trying to bring him back.”

The edge of panic in the man’s eyes only frightened Draco more. If he was thinking of Draco as someone on the other side of a war, rather than a suspect -

“What’s going on?”

Handsome Auror Dan Hanchard. Draco hadn’t expected to ever be pleased to see him, but the Aurors were moving back from him and Draco felt like he could breathe again.

“We thought we’d have another word with Malfoy.”

Hanchard frowned. “I’m team lead on this one, remember? And I think Malfoy’s a waste of time.” He slanted an unfairly attractive grin at Draco, careless and square-jawed, the hero kind of look Draco could never’ve pulled off. “No offence.”

“No no, I’m thrilled to be considered a waste of time by the Auror department.”

He laughed. “All right. Well, I was just coming to round up you two reprobates for lunch. I think Potter’s coming along for a meal with this one pretty soon.” He winked at Draco.

Draco had thought he was too mature for petty jealousy, but apparently he’d just needed a new Potter figure in his life.

That wasn’t fair. Handsome Auror Dan could never elicit the depths of hatred Harry had.

The Aurors shuffled out, and Draco closed the door behind them with a wave of his wand. He opened the windows too, feeling trapped, and moved to stand by them, breathing in fresh air and gripping his wand tightly.

“Draco?” Harry called from outside the office.

“Come in,” Draco called back.

Harry entered, and frowned at what he saw. “You all right?”

“Just Aurors bothering me,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“As if I’d know anything. It’s so stupid and petty, just because of my past - ”

“Your past does actually matter,” Harry pointed out. “Bill Weasley’s still feeling the effects of your past.”

Draco felt winded. 

Harry’s face crumpled as he took in Draco’s expression. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve - ”

“Of course you should,” Draco said, voice wooden. “It’s true, after all.”

“Draco - ”

“Let’s just have lunch. Please.”

It was an edgy meal, but Draco felt himself relax nonetheless. The Aurors wouldn’t come back while Harry was there, he was sure of it; and anyway, Harry wouldn’t have let them talk to him that way to begin with.

Maybe he’d let them question Draco. But not threaten to arrest him.

“I’m gonna come and watch you practice this afternoon,” he said. “All of you, I mean, not just you.”

“Yeah?” Harry said, sounding a little surprised.

“It’s good to keep an eye on your form, I think,” he said. “I’ve been reading about best practice for sports Healers, and they said it helps build rapport, and even predict what injures are most likely so you can try and prevent them, or at least be prepared.”

“And the Aurors won’t be able to find you.”

There was an infinitesimal pause, and then he said, “don’t be silly, Harry. There’re always a couple out there watching you, aren’t there? I’ll be around _more_ Aurors.”

But he wouldn’t be alone with them, and they wouldn’t be able to trap him.

He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t telling Harry exactly what had happened. Maybe he wasn’t sure he’d get the degree of horror he wanted.

John and the coaches and players seemed fine

“Free of Aurors at last,” Draco said.

He turned back to the fireplace, and saw Harry look up from brushing off his uniform and wince. “Er…”

“Ah. So Hanchard’s got someone outside again?” Draco said. He kept his voice calm, but he could tell Harry sense the needle-sharpness under the smooth by the way he winced.

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Just that for the foreseeable future, he thinks it’s best. If this really is Death Eaters there are reasons to take particular precautions, I guess.”

Draco snorted. “You said yourself that if they were aiming for you they would’ve come for you already. Unless it’s planned as a grand finale, I suppose, but my memory is that the bad guys usually don’t round to that until May.”

“He’s got to be more cautious than that. He’s just.... trying to be thorough. It’s not that I agree, but…” Harry trailed off, and Draco couldn’t stand it.

“Why aren’t you arguing with him? Tell him he’s wrong - or that the others are wrong, the ones who really think it’s me.”

“He’s just doing his job, Draco. They are wrong, but he’ll see that.”

Draco twitched to his feet. “I’m going to read in my bedroom. It’s at the back of the house - I don’t want him watching.”

Harry sighed. “All right, but he’s not the enemy, Draco. He doesn’t suspect you.”

“If that was really true, he wouldn’t have someone out there. He thinks there might be something suspicious at the very least.”

“I suppose,” Harry said with a sigh, sounding irritated now, and sank back into the sofa. Draco eyed him for a moment, body thrumming with tension, then headed for the door.

No, he couldn’t stand it.

“Why do you let him send people here?” Draco said, rounding on Harry. “If you really pushed it, he wouldn’t.”

“I’m trying to be reasonable.”

“I don’t _want_ you to be reasonable!” Draco said, and heard his voice crack.

“...What?”

“You’re never reasonable,” he said, and he could hear the hurt spilling out, couldn’t claw it out of view. “I saw you fight the teachers, fight the Ministry. You fight and scream and defy for your friends, for anyone, when you think they’re being mistreated.”

“Can’t I have grown up a bit?”

“But that’s not it, is it?” Draco said, voice jagged. “It’s because you suspect too - maybe not consciously, but on some level you think maybe he’s right, maybe I am - ”

“Possibly,” Harry said, and it was so unexpected that Draco went quiet. “But I don’t think so. And if we have a fight about what I really think deep down in my heart of hearts, _I will win_. I’m sorry about what I said earlier, all right, I _know_ you know about Bill, that you still think about him and everything else - I shouldn’t have said that. Would you please just - just calm down and, and let me hug you.”

Draco shut his eyes. “I’m sorry - I’m being crazy, the Aurors make me feel crazy, it’s like my skin’s crawling - ”

“Try not to think about them. They’ll be gone really soon, I promise, and hopefully they’ll catch the attackers quickly and then you won’t have to worry about me, either.”

Draco opened his eyes, scowling. “What makes you think that’s part of it?”

“When you were watching this afternoon - I saw you flinch every time I reached for the Snitch.” Draco gave a slightly cheesy grin, embarrassed but amused. Harry went and sat on the sofa, and lit the fire with a wave of his wand. “Come on, it’s winter. When it’s dark this early, we’re entitled to cuddle in front of the fire at five p.m.” He opened his arms.

Draco slunk over, and let Harry wrap an arm round him. He slid down a little, enjoying the comforting weight of Harry’s hold on him. “Where’d you learn this?” he said quietly. “You’re not always a big cuddler.”

Harry snorted a laugh. “I might not be very good at it, but I do _like_ it.”

Draco closed his eyes. This wasn’t the kind of reassurance he wanted; he wanted to know bone-deep that Harry was on his side. But he knew Harry didn’t think of the Aurors as being on a different side, the way Draco had for most of his life. And Harry did care.

That would have to be enough.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day was better. There weren’t as many angry letters, and the Aurors didn’t come into his office, and he didn’t fight with Harry. There was tension between them, though; he saw Harry catch him biting his lip not to say anything when another Auror followed them back to Grimmauld Place.

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry told him as they got inside. “I know they make you nervous, and I understand, but remember - you got arrested after the Battle of Hogwarts, but you didn’t go to Azkaban. They’re not going to frame you or anything. They’re suspicious, yeah, because the attackers are probably connected to the Death Eaters somehow and you were connected to Voldemort once upon a time. But you aren’t any more, okay? And you’re not guilty. So please try and relax.”

Draco felt a flare of irritation; he was tempted to snark about Harry just wanting him to play along with the idiot suspicions of his could’ve-been colleagues. Instead he said, “I hope you’re right. It’s - I do want to be overreacting, you know.”

“I’m pretty sure you are.”

“Oh, fuck off, Potter.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. I was going for reassuring and just being an arsehole.”

Draco let himself be hugged in apology. “That’s okay.”

***

Draco was in the Quidditch stands, watching fourteen points of purple and orange dart about in the sky. He could see Harry’s face, smiling. He raised his hands; no need of a wand. A moment later, Harry’s eyes lit up and his hands closed round the Snitch.

Harry jerked, seizing. Draco could see his eyes rolling up; danger signs racked up in his brain, and then none of it mattered because Harry was falling. Somehow no one caught him, no spells slowed him, and he hit the ground with the crack of breaking bones.

Draco looked at his still-raised hands. They were long and white, and he recognised them.

He opened his eyes, and reached instinctively for Harry. Harry mumbled something, still asleep, but he was there, solid and warm and just fine.

Just a nightmare. The fear still thrummed through him nonetheless, and he wished they’d stayed at his home that night, instead of just visiting to feed the cat. Viviane would’ve known, and he could’ve stroked her and held onto that furry ball of warmth without waking Harry.

What if it wasn’t just a dream? Draco bit his lip in the dark, thinking of half-remembered stories he’d heard about Harry, and about what his father had done to Ginny. She’d been possessed by the shade of the Dark Lord; it was possible. And Harry had had magical dreams, ones that had hinted at deeper truths. Subconscious possession could bubble up in the form of a dream; it had happened to wizards before.

He huffed to himself, telling himself not to be ridiculous. The Aurors had got to him, that was all, harping on his connection to the Dark Lord, and Draco wasn’t going to allow them to have such power over him. Besides, they imagined Draco as some grand power behind the throne, but he’d been cannon fodder. The Dark Lord wouldn’t ever have possessed him.

He’d possessed Ginny Weasley, of course. He’d possessed _rats_.

Draco turned over, curling himself around Harry. It was a ludicrous thought, and he had to be up in the morning. He wasn’t going to think about it any more.

But he turned away from Harry anyway. He couldn’t quite rid himself of the idea that he might be tainting him, somehow.

It took Draco a long time to get back to sleep, and consequently a long time to wake in the morning. By the time Harry managed to rouse him there wasn’t time for breakfast, and Draco rushed into work at ten past, his unopened post spilling out of his hands.

Thankfully there was no one between the Floo and his office but Joanne, who gave him a knowing grin and said nothing.

Draco took care of the morning’s business: watering the herbs, checking on potions that had been bubbling overnight, and moving them on to their next stages. It wasn’t until nearly eleven that he turned to his post, and he was so distracted he opened the first without thinking.

Yellow-green goop exploded from the envelope, and a smell of petrol filled the air. Draco sprang up with a cry, dropping the envelope, but it was too late. His hands and forearms were springing up with boils - there was even one on his cheek, he thought. He cried out with pain. It was incredibly painful, a minor ache times a thousand. Draco’s hands swelled until he looked like he was wearing gloves, and he had to bite back the cries.

He had treatments. It would be fine - in his cupboards - 

He yelled in agony as his swollen hands touched the doorknob, stumbling backwards. Shit. Even if he could make himself ignore the pain, his hands were so stiff and swollen he couldn’t bend his fingers to turn the doorknob. But he couldn’t do anything else. He tried again and this time his eyes watered with the pain.

“Draco? Draco?” 

He turned at the frantic voice, the footsteps running along the corridor.

“Yes?”

“I heard you scream - ” Harry froze in the doorway at the sight of Draco’s hands. “Shit, Draco, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Someone sent me Bubotuber pus,” he said, voice strained. “Don’t tell me I should’ve had the Aurors going through it all, please - ”

“I wasn’t going to! Sit down, all right? What can I do? You must have something for this.”

“Dittany, in that cupboard.” He hissed at moving his hands, and Harry flapped at him even as obeyed. “Keep still, just tell me. I’ll do what you say.”

“Murtlap essence, on the bottom shelf there - just pour out a big bowl. D’you know what it looks like?”

“I think so, yeah. Can you just - remind me as I go? I’m working as fast as I can.”

“Yeah.” Harry moved quickly, obeying Draco’s orders to the letter. It was a little strange having someone go through his supplies, even Harry - but he was respectful, and soon enough was sitting in front of him with the bowl and some cotton buds.

“You put your hands in the bowl, yeah? And I can make it faster with these.”

Draco nodded, and sighed in relief as he sank his hands into the cooling liquid. His knuckles hit the bottom of the bowl and he flinched back; Harry kept the Murtlap essence from spilling everywhere, eyes full of concern. “God, Draco, you poor thing.”

“I’m fine,” Draco said, and winced as he heard his own voice. He didn’t sound fine.

Harry was kind enough not to contradict him. Instead he started dabbing at Draco’s hands. Draco might’ve expected him to rush, rough and urgent like a cliched Gryffindor; instead he was gentle and careful.

“Thank you,” he said softly, as the pain eased.

“No problem. I had a vague idea about the cure - this happened to Hermione, you know, when you told the _Prophet_ she was a ‘scarlet woman’.”

“Oh,” said Draco. He really had no idea what to say to that, and Harry frowned at his silence. But Harry’s hands didn’t become any less gentle as they smeared the Murtlap essence over his skin.

“D’you wanna go home?” Harry asked.

“No,” Draco said. “Tomorrow’s our day off before the match anyway, and I don’t feel like reminding all those Aurors I’m widely-known to be evil and have reasons to despise mainstream society besides.”

“They’re not gonna decide you’re evil because some nutjob sent you poison,” Harry snapped, then closed his eyes, visibly restraining himself. “Sorry. But really, Draco, if you don’t feel well - ”

“I’m fine,” Draco said. “I’ll just - have a quiet day, maybe. Watch you all train again.”

“Sounds good,” Harry said with a soft smile. “I was coming for a cuppa, you know. Shall I make you one?”

“Lots of sugar.”

“Of course, you sweet-fanged fiend.”

Once they’d had some fortifying tea, Draco cast a few spells to bring his hands almost completely back to normal, and they headed for the pitch. Harry was solicitous, opening doors for him and hovering until he was safely ensconced in the stands. Draco felt the eyes on them, but it was hard to mind too much with Harry earnestly promising to check on him in an hour.

There were business reasons to be out here watching the players, but nevertheless it was hard to keep his mind from wandering. The thought of being possessed by the Dark Lord was idiotic, and he dismissed it; but it kept circling back like a vulture. He worried at it like a Crup with a bone.

Maybe he should tell Harry. But after his supposed paranoia about the Aurors, Draco didn’t want to sound crazy.

By the end of the day he was feeling better, and Viviane spent the evening curled up in his lap. The next day, Harry was still being sweetly solicitous, and they had a morning spent doing exactly what Draco wanted to do: reading books in bed, and stopping every now and then to have sex.

“Sure you don’t want anything else?” Harry asked after lunch, and Draco put down his glass.

“I did have an idea,” he said. “But you have to be honest and tell me if it’s dangerous or crazy.”

“I promise,” Harry said, looking somewhere between concerned and excited.

“I thought we could try going for a walk in the Muggle world.”

“What? Really?”

“We don’t have to! But I thought - maybe a park or something. You know about the Muggle world, don’t you? You grew up there.”

“Er, yeah. I just… _really_ didn’t expect you to want to spend any time there.”

“I’m not saying we should talk to any Muggles,” Draco said quickly. “Or do anything to risk secrecy. I just… I’m trying to be more open-minded, you know.”

Harry beamed at him. “You’re the best.”

“I am?”

“Absolutely. And it’s not dangerous at all. We’ll go to St James’ Park. They’ve got pelicans.”

“Great!”

Harry eyed him, and laughed. “D’you have any idea what a pelican is?”

“They have them at St James’ Park.”

“It’s a giant Muggle bird.”

“Oh,” Draco said. “They can’t breathe fire or anything, can they?”

“Muggle bird, Draco.”

“Right.”

They walked from Grimmauld Place; apparently it wasn’t too far, and Draco was anxious about the possibility of breaking the Statute of Secrecy. As they went, they started to see more Muggles, and Draco walked a little closer to Harry. His conscious understanding that they weren’t dangerous didn’t make as much difference as he’d have wished; he was still on edge, prickling with the awareness of such different people all around him. Of the ways he could cock things up and show magic to them. He put his right hand on Harry’s elbow, half to stop himself from drawing his wand automatically and half for the pleasure of the contact.

Harry looked sideways at him and smiled.

Still, the park was beautiful. And the Muggles there seemed less like an alien species: there were parents with children and toddlers. The children were laughing and playing and in a few cases crying, bundled up against the December cold in bright clothes that stood out amidst the greys of winter. It was lovely.

And there was excitement to getting to explore this different world. He felt daring, and rather stylish: he imagined telling his friends casually that he’d gone for a walk amongst Muggles with his Muggleborn boyfriend. They’d be startled at his bravery, and a little scandalised. A proper pureblood boy, laughing next to his boyfriend at the goings-on of Muggle children.

He’d wanted to do this for a while, reading about the Muggleborn. But he’d felt frightened of going out there; he’d felt he might get lost, somehow. But with Harry beside him he could see how much like him the Muggles were, and not fear that he wouldn’t be able to find his way back.

They paused by the river, and Draco saw the pelicans. They didn’t seem like Muggle birds at all, and Harry laughed at his shocked face. Then they kissed by the river, and Draco held onto the lapels of Harry’s coat, not wanting to let go of Harry’s warmth or the joy of this moment.

It got colder as they walked; Draco’s breath steamed on the air.

“Your breath’s steaming! Dragon pun time!” Harry said, his eyes lighting up.

Draco rolled his eyes, laughing. He’d forgotten life could be like this.

It was a beautiful day. If it took him a while to get to sleep, as he lay in the dark wondering if it _could_ be him somehow, if he’d been attacking the Quidditch games without knowing it - if he grabbed at his Mark convulsively, even as he flinched from the feeling of the scar tissue - well, that was only at the end.

***

Saturday’s game was another Cannons loss, but that wasn’t the result people had been waiting for, of course. They all shuffled off to the pub the moment the game was over, wanting to hear from other players the moment the game ended. And they did: no attacks. Everyone was safe.

A cheer went up, and everyone started buying rounds. Joy and relief reverberated in Draco’s chest, and he toasted the Aurors with the others, grinning.

Which triggered the brief, unworthy thought that now the Aurors would likely stick around, since it seemed to have worked.

Ginny dropped into the booth with Harry and Draco, beaming. They toasted again, and Harry and Ginny dropped into excited chatter about everyone’s scores and what it meant for the league with one more game before the January transfer window. Draco listened, occasionally offering an opinion, and drank.

He knew the possession idea was completely irrational. Maybe he could tell Ginny, though, and she’d understand.

No. His own father had been the one to put her through that. Idiotic. But maybe he could ask her about it subtly.

Harry headed for the loo. It’d be a good few minutes, Draco thought, eyeing the way various players were stopping him to chat, all of them high off the energy in the room. He turned to Ginny.

“Congratulations on the win, by the way,” he said. “We were all so distracted with the lack of attacks I haven’t even said that.”

She shrugged, but she was grinning. “It wasn’t down to me. But we’re doing well - we definitely have a shot at the Cup this year still, and after the injuries that seemed impossible.”

“I bet it all seems impossible,” he said. “I mean, did you imagine, back in your first year at Hogwarts, that you’d end up here?”

“Not at all.”

Time to do it. “You know, we’ve never talked about your first year at Hogwarts.” He swallowed sharply. “I wanted to… wanted to…”

“What, exactly?” She threw the words like a javelin.

“I don’t know. Apologise for my father, I suppose. It wasn’t - was it painful, what happened? Could you feel him in your head?”

“What the fuck?” Her eyes were flashing, and Draco’s stomach soured. Humiliation scorched him, and regret. “Why would you bring that up now?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night - please, let’s forget I even said anything - ”

“You brought it up! Come on, let’s chat.”

“No, I’m - ”

“What’s this?”

They both looked up at Harry’s voice. His eyes were flickering between them. Draco felt the stupid, too-late panic of knowing he’d been caught doing something idiotic. 

“Malfoy was asking me about first year,” Ginny said. She was flushed with anger. “You know, about what it felt like when his daddy stuck Voldemort in my head.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Draco, can I have a word? Maybe somewhere private?”

Draco scowled. “I’m sorry I asked, Weasley. Won’t happen again.” The words were right, but he couldn’t control his snappish tone. 

Ginny scowled at him. “Better not.” She scrambled out of the booth with an unusual lack of grace, claimed her half-drunk beer, and was gone.

Draco cringed a little but didn’t follow her; he couldn’t imagine what to say.

Harry replaced her at the table, leaning in. His voice was more thoughtful than angry, but Draco still cringed from the question. “What was that about?”

“Nothing,” Draco said. “I just - I asked her about something I shouldn’t have. Stupid of me.”

Harry nodded, still watching him with an unnervingly steady green gaze. “Yeah. She wasn’t too happy with me, back in fifth year, when that came up.”

“You asked her about it?”

“I failed to, actually. I was having weird dreams, and I was worried I was possessed by Voldemort. I was really scared, but I didn’t think to ask her about it. And she heard, and came to tell me off for being an idiot, which she was absolutely right about, of course.”

Draco froze for a moment, then crumbled. “Harry, I - I had a dream that I was the Dark Lord. That I was attacking people. It seemed so stupid - I couldn’t tell you, you’ve _actually_ dealt with the Dark Lord, I know I’m being - being mad - but I can’t stop thinking about it. What if I’m the one - ”

Harry’s eyes went soft and bruised-looking, creasing at the corners. “You’re not, you’re not.”

“How do you know? Are you sure?”

“You’ve been at all the matches. I’ve seen you. And you haven’t had any blackouts, have you? Woken up somewhere not knowing how you got there?”

“No.”

“There you go. Impossible,” Harry said. He took in Draco’s expression, and covered Draco’s hand with his where it was gripping his glass too hard. He said it again, more softly. “Impossible.”

Draco gave him a wavering smile. “Thank you.”

***

Draco kept hearing mutterings from the Aurors all that week: he was a Healer, he had access to plenty of exotic things, and his friend ran an apothecary; who knew what she could get her hands on?

Harry, maddeningly, kept trying to reassure him by defending the Aurors.

“They’re exhausted at the moment - they’re completely overworked trying to keep an eye on the league and solve this, never mind what other crimes are going on.”

“Lazy, angry Aurors. Fantastic.”

“The point is, they’re edgy and they’re probably saying things they don’t mean. Try letting it roll over you - they’ll catch the attacker soon, and then it’ll all be over. I promise.”

But they didn’t give him the same suspicious looks when Harry was around, and Harry kept chatting to them. Draco didn’t want to ask what he might have told them. He remembered telling Harry that outside of his office, all bets were off on whether he could be trusted.

No, that was ridiculous. Harry wouldn’t have told them that; he wasn’t a fool.

The last game of the year was on the winter solstice. It was freezing, and started at ten for fear that it’d last too long and they’d end up playing in the dark. Draco thought it was highly unlikely a pro Seeker would fail to catch a Snitch for five hours, never mind Harry, but stranger things had happened, he supposed.

Forty minutes in, every Auror stationed in the stadium Disapparated.

Draco felt sick. A murmur went through the stadium, rising into frightened voices. Spectators starting Apparating away, and it spread through the stadium like a plague as people saw others Disapparating and thought something was happening. Screams were rising.

John, through a Sonorus, started telling everyone to keep calm and that nothing was happening in this stadium. It barely slowed them down. The players were hovering in the air.

The other team was in the running for the Cup, and after a short discussion, John used Sonorus again.

“Keep playing,” he said. “None of us stop for anything!”

Draco cringed, but it seemed to reassure some of the spectators; the Apparating away slowed, then stopped. Thankfully the Snitch was caught shortly afterwards, and the players landed with thumps and Apparated away immediately, leaving their brooms in the mud. Draco hopped the barrier and ran across the muddy pitch to Harry, almost slipping in shoes not meant for it.

“The Ball and Bludger?” he said.

“Fastest way to find out what’s happened,” Harry nodded, and they Apparated.

The pub was aclamour with loud, frantic voices, and the start of tears. It was a blur, as people explained and more people arrived and added news, rumour solidifying into fact.

No one was dead. But almost fifty people had been injured, including eleven players, by all four Quidditch balls turning into mini tornadoes. They’d torn through the stadium and stands, destroying half the place before the Aurors had managed to stop it.

“Fuck.”

The room seemed divided into those with nothing to say, and those spilling out every thought in their heads, anger and sorrow and defiance. Draco was one of the silent ones, and Harry seemed the same way. They stuck close by each other’s sides, turning into each other again and again.

When the Aurors arrived, they were mobbed by questions. They stood and talked for about ten minutes. It was Dan Hanchard again, and another Auror Draco didn’t know. Hanchard was reassuring and strong and kind, and had apparently been instrumental in stopping the tornadoes, and Draco dearly wished he was less petty. He wished he didn’t care and wasn’t jealous, wasn’t trying not to analyse Harry’s expression when he looked at Hanchard.

He didn’t even want to be an Auror, and never had. He just wanted to be Harry’s type.

Hanchard was going to end up keeping an eye on Harry over Christmas. Draco could feel it. Draco would be away with his family, because of course any mixing between his family and Harry’s was impossible, and -

Hanchard was shouldering his way through the crowd towards them.

“Dan! Thank God you were there,” said Harry. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Still on duty, actually, Harry,” he said. Draco felt his stomach drop through the floor. “Mr Malfoy, can I have a word in private?”

It felt like nightmares he’d had, following the Aurors out of the pub. It was silent - or maybe he was too numb to hear the noise. His body felt cold. 

He glanced back and found Harry following them. At least he wasn’t going to be alone.

This time they brought him to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It wasn’t an interrogation room, though; it was just a conference room, and Hanchard brought him a cup of tea. 

Harry wasn’t allowed in. Draco wondered if he was waiting outside. Would he be shouting at them to let him in, or chatting in friendly fashion with the people he knew?

Hanchard said something.

“Sorry?” Draco said, turning his eyes from the door.

Hanchard smiled grimly. “Oh, it’s not me you should be saying that to.”

Draco started. “I thought you didn’t suspect me?”

“I didn’t. I’m starting to wonder, though.”

Draco’s heart turned over in his chest. Dan hadn’t suspected him before; that made him more credible now.

“I hear you wanted to be a Quidditch player.”

“What? So did every wizard in England at some stage, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not every wizard in England has a jealousy problem like you do, Mr Malfoy. And I don’t think this is when you were five.”

“Who told you this?” Draco said abruptly. “Harry, correct?”

“I never reveal my sources,” Hanchard said with a small smile.

“You’re not a fucking journalist, Hanchard, you can admit you’re getting your info from my fucking boyfriend.”

“Stay calm, Mr Malfoy, all right? I’d like to check some facts with you. We never got a clear read on the timeline of your relationship with Harry Potter. When did it start?”

Draco sneered at him, but answered.

“Ah,” said Hanchard, writing it down. “So around the time the Aurors arrived at the Cannons stadium for the first time, when we’d realised the accidents weren’t accidents.”

“You’re giving me far more credit as a criminal mastermind than I deserve,” said Draco. “I’ve known Harry since I was eleven, you think I got with him right when I did out of some gift of timing?”

“My understanding is that underestimating you was Albus Dumbledore’s last mistake,” Hanchard said mildly.

“I - you’re really bringing that up? Now?”

“I’m sure you can understand we find it interesting that a Healer with the Dark Mark has attached himself to Harry Potter at the same time that all this has been going on.”

“I’d be an idiot to get with Harry so he’d protect me from the Aurors,” snarled Draco. “What makes you think he’d do it?”

Hanchard raised his eyebrows. “You think he wouldn’t?”

“I’m in here with you, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. Where people can’t hear you. So if there’s anyone pressuring you to do something, now is the time to tell me.”

“There really, really isn’t,” he said, voice rising. “I’d bloody tell you if there was! I was a stupid kid having a nervous breakdown when I brought the Death Eaters to Hogwarts. You really think - ”

“I dunno,” Hanchard interrupted. “All right. You sit here for a while, I’ve got things to do. You can think for a while.”

He did think for a while. Mostly about whether it’d be in the _Prophet_ that they’d questioned him, and what might happen at work. He wrote letters to Pansy and Greg and his mother in his head, and imagined their furious replies, how catty and vicious they’d be about the Aurors.

He wondered what Harry thought.

He had no sense of time passing, but he thought it had been over an hour when the door opened.

“Auror Hanchard’s busy following up on something else,” the man said. “You might get called back, but for now you’re free to go.”

Harry barrelled past him. “Draco,” he exclaimed. “Are you okay? You look exhausted.”

“I am,” he said, standing. “Can we just… I want to go home.”

Harry kept a hand on the small of his back as they wound their way through the Auror department. Draco felt small and cold and sick, and he couldn’t wait to crawl into bed with the covers over his head.

They Flooed back to his.

“I’ll talk to Dan,” Harry said. “He’s a reasonable bloke.”

“No he’s not,” Draco exploded. “Maybe he was, but he’s - I dunno, he got frustrated because he’s not getting anywhere and he dragged me out of that pub then wandered off! They haven’t got anything on me but they come back again and again. Am I gonna live under this suspicion til I die?”

“No,” Harry said, sounding horrified. Draco’s eyes felt gritty; he shut them, not wanting to look at Harry. “No, Draco, it’s just - ” He gave a growl of frustration. “I know I can make them see - ”

“I can’t have one more fight about this with you,” Draco said, hearing the emotion rising in his own voice. “I need you to be on my side.”

“I am on your side! I’m trying to be on your side by keeping a good relationship with them! Isn’t that the clever thing to do - the Slytherin thing?”

He couldn’t do this any more; couldn’t go any further into this quagmire of emotion. If he was going to wrench himself free, it was now or never, and he couldn’t bear the risk any more. 

“We’re done,” he said, and opened his eyes. Harry’s expression made his chest hurt; it was stunned and hurt, like a child who didn’t know where the blow had come from. Then fury rose there, and Draco could hardly breathe with the pain of it.

“You don’t mean that,” Harry said, voice trembling. “Not over this.”

“‘This’ - this is everything! If you don’t see that - I don’t know what to say. They dragged me out in front of everyone over _nothing_ , Harry, fucking nothing, and I’ll always be suspected. I know you were almost one of them but - ”

“They made a mistake tonight, all right? An awful one! But I’m trying to grow up and not burn bridges every time the Ministry messes up, it doesn’t mean I don’t care for you.”

“I’d burn the whole world down if I really loved someone,” he said at last. “Fuck bridges.”

Harry was breathing like a bellows. “Then - then - we’re really - ”

He nodded, and he’d broken his own heart against the emerald hardness of Harry’s eyes.

“Fine,” Harry bit out viciously.

But Harry’s hands were shaking. So was his voice, when he said “twelve Grimmauld Place,” and vanished.

***

Viviane seemed to miss Harry. She was wandering round the house, miaowing as if she’d lost something.

Or maybe it was because of Draco. He’d barely moved in two days.

On Christmas Eve, a parcel arrived, with a letter attached. Draco recognised Harry’s handwriting and his heart curdled in his chest. He couldn’t bear to open it. But the curiosity overcame the fear.

_Dear Draco,_

_Don’t worry, I’m respecting your wishes. But I bought everyone a Christmas present, and it didn’t seem fair to leave you out just because we broke up. I hope we can still be friends._

_Yours,_

_Harry_

There was a large blot on the ‘I’ after ‘but’, as if Harry had paused with his quill on the parchment for a long moment.

Draco stared at it, feeling sick. He didn’t know what he’d wanted. It would’ve torn into him to find a letter pleading for him to come back, or furiously attacking him for leaving. To be cold and sick and numb at the sight of the kind, polite letter - decent down to the last comma, just like Harry - was ridiculous.

Broken hearts were ridiculous.

He tore into the parcel, and gave a hoarse bark of a laugh. _Seeking For Finders_. It was a Quidditch book - good, but cheap, and standard. A generic gift for someone who liked Quidditch. Tears welled up, hot and uncontrollable.

He hadn’t got Harry a gift at all.

Still. Harry didn’t know him very well, obviously; he’d been stuck for ideas and gone for Quidditch. This was evidence that he’d made the right decision. Stupid to be pining over a few blissful weeks.

He went home to his mother that afternoon. The Manor was lit up and decorated just as it had been in his childhood; his mother was smiling. But the smile was brittle, both of them aware of what they’d be doing tomorrow.

He hadn’t told her about Harry; he hadn’t known how. But when she delicately asked, “and is there anyone special, darling?” he felt his face crumple.

“No,” he said, shaking his head as if that would hide his expression.

“Oh, my darling.” She came and hugged him, and he clung to her. She was thinner than she’d been; her bones felt fragile under his hands. 

They woke early on Christmas Day. Draco tried to keep smiling, as he wished his mother a happy Christmas. She wished him one in return, and he kissed her cheek. 

He needed to be strong for her today; to be unwavering at her side.

They left the Manor early, too. The journey to Azkaban’s island from the mainland took a while, and there was no Apparition or Floo connection. Instead they took a boat across the freezing sea. Icy seaspray stung their faces, and the mist was so thick they could barely see. He held his mother’s hand, trying to keep her warm.

Draco was painfully aware of the guard’s gaze. For a moment he had visions of being turned away, banned as a guest because of the cloud of suspicion he was under. 

But it didn’t happen. They were allowed into a small, dim room. After a few minutes, Lucius came in.

He was behind a transparent screen of magic. He was terribly thin; his face turned almost skull-like as he smiled at them. His face was grey, like the sea and the sky and the walls that sealed them off from both.

“Hello. I’m so pleased to see you both.”

“Lucius, my darling…”

“Hello, F-father. You look well, I…” Their voices overlapped and tripped over each other as they tried to sound normal, before falling into silence.

His father attempted his old, smooth smile. “How have you been, Draco? I’m so pleased you’re here.”

Narcissa’s hand shook in Draco’s while he tried to find a way to answer the question. “I’ve been - I’ve been well, mostly. I’m enjoying being a Healer.”

His mother squeezed his hand. He took it as a sign of approval: tell your father only good things.

Draco thought the guards might tell him things; he thought his father might get the _Prophet_. But if Lucius didn’t want to challenge it, Draco wasn’t going to tell him.

He hoped his father didn’t know. He didn’t want Lucius to know Draco was walking away from what he’d wanted for him - or worse, to know Draco was lying about it.

It was a three-hour visit that scraped at the soul. But when they left, the loneliness that bloomed in his father’s eyes was worse.

The boat trip back to the mainland was spent, for both Draco and his mother, on rubbing their eyes and blaming the sting of sea salt.

It was an unhappy Christmas, torn between thoughts of Harry and how much he missed him, and thoughts of his father, and how horrified he’d be.

On New Year’s Eve, his doorbell rang.

Draco jumped. He couldn’t imagine who it could be, which in retrospect should’ve been his first clue.

He opened the door, and Harry was there.

“Harry.”

“Can I talk to you?”

“All right,” Draco said, almost mouthing the words. He couldn’t quite speak, his chest tightening, but he stepped back and Harry took the invitation, following him to the sitting room. Viviane greeted him with a joyful trill, and he said hello to her, fussing her for a good twenty seconds before he spoke.

“Draco.” Harry swallowed. “Listen, I… I know I upset you, I know I made you angry. I know being loyal to your people is really important to you. But I just - I think we can work it out. Please? Can’t we just talk about it?”

He felt a wrench of yearning. “I… maybe, I don’t… Harry, I just spent Christmas with my mum and dad. We went to Azkaban on Christmas Day.”

Harry swallowed. “That was kind of you,” he said gamely.

“That was - as if that’s the point! Harry, if we kept fighting about trusting the Aurors or not… what would we do when it’s my father? Or my mother, or your friends?”

“What makes you think we’d fight over them? You said they’re not doing anything wrong...”

“They aren’t, but - but they have. I have. I just - I _just_ visited my father a few days ago. I love him. And I can’t be with someone who’d choose the right thing over the person he loved.”

Harry paused. “Actually, Draco, I think you would - I think you are. I know you love your dad but you’re not living the life he would’ve chosen, are you? You’re a Healer, and you’re exploring the Muggle world, and you’re with me. You’re choosing not to follow his path.” Harry’s eyes were wide and imploring, his hands open. He thought he was being kind.

But right now? When Draco was already hating himself over the possibility that he was betraying his father’s desires? It was the last thing he wanted to hear.

He backed away, shaking his head. “No.”

“Draco - it’s the beginning of a new year, it’s the time for change - ”

“No!” He jerked his wand at the front door, and it opened with a bang. “I - I’m sorry, Harry. But I just… I can’t.”

Harry shut his eyes, shoulders falling forward, curling in on himself like a dying plant. Draco ached with the desire to go to him, but he held himself back.

He couldn’t. 

Harry walked out, leaving everything they could’ve been in the year just gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**January**

Two days after they arrived back at work, Harry knocked on Draco’s office door.

Draco flinched back when he opened the door, then caught himself. He drew himself up into his best impression of his mother in the face of social enemies: tall and unmoved and contained.

“Yes?”

Harry had dark smudges under his eyes. Draco felt a selfish burst of pleasure at the thought that Harry was affected too, then wondered what Harry’s friends knew. Were they taking care of him? Bringing him food?

“I thought you should know. Dan, he worked it out - he’s a hero, the guy almost - they found the attacker.”

“They what?” Draco said, bewildered.

“The wizard who’s been attacking the games. It’s just one nutjob, he used to be a Death Eater but he wasn’t Marked or anything - they think maybe he got caught up in some really dark experimentation the Death Eaters were doing in the Department of Mysteries, but maybe he’s just crazy, I dunno - the point is, they found him! He was gearing up for more attacks, he was gonna try and kill me and have the Dark Mark float over the stadium, all this stuff. When Dan came for him he set his lair on fire, but Dan got him anyway, and Penelope stopped the fire and saved the evidence. He’s going to Azkaban and we’re all taking the Aurors to the pub.”

Harry was sparked up and buzzing, eyes alight in his tired face as he told the story. The heroic Muggleborn Auror had saved Harry, been brave and good and now they were getting drinks together. That made sense. Draco felt shaky and cold and sick, the misery even penetrating the relief of it: they’d caught him, everyone was safe. Harry was safe. And Draco wasn’t fired, they knew it wasn’t him.

He looked at Harry’s face, happy and hopeful when they’d broken up barely a week ago. “I suppose you know it’s not me, then,” he said, cold and vicious, and closed his door and turned away.

He slid down the door, crouching under the weight of his own misery.

***

But he couldn’t live his whole life under the suspicion of ex-Gryffindors; couldn’t spend his personal life under the gaze of Harry’s evil-fighting friends and ex-colleagues as they waited for him to show his dark side. This was for the best.

That January was the kind of cold that bit into your flesh and burrowed into your bones. Every time Draco went outside it shuddered through him. Ice slicked the grass of the pitch in the early mornings, as Draco arrived early enough to avoid seeing Harry, and Harry let him.

The awareness of what he’d lost was a physical ache in his chest. He worked all day with the weight of it there just under his heart, sitting there alone over lunch with burning eyes. Draco wanted to laugh at himself for his melodrama, but the hurt of it was too immediate. During games he veered between watching Harry, drinking in his face when he knew Harry wouldn’t see him looking, and looking away like he’d looked at the sun: the pain, the afterimage printed on the back of his eyelids.

Work was a blur; the January transfer window passed, players leaving and arriving, and all Draco took in was that he’d still be seeing Harry every day.

Except that he wasn’t, of course. He was avoiding him too hard for that.

Viviane seemed to miss Harry too; she prowled the house for the first few days, miaowing her questions and displeasure. Then she got back into the habit of sitting on Draco’s chest all evening while he read, and perhaps occasionally dampened her fur.

She didn’t like that, shaking herself off. But she didn’t leave him alone.

Harry only tried speaking to him once; he came to him after practice. “Draco, listen - you remember I had that minor injury before Christmas? John just wanted me to check with you about the drill I’ve been running.”

Draco listened to him explain what he was doing and tried to keep his face still. When Harry was finished, Draco spoke calmly, but with such over-enunciation he sounded almost drunk to his own ears. “That should be fine.”

“Are you sure? You could come and watch, check I’m not doing anything stupid like I usually am.” Harry smiled crookedly, and it was so familiar that Draco felt fierce affection flood through him, threatening to melt his ice. He was going to break apart in the face of it all, and he couldn’t bear that humiliation. Harry didn’t seem half as fallen-apart as he was.

He’d restrain himself, hold himself together, if it killed him.

So he levelled Harry with the iciest gaze he could muster. “Do what you want, as always. It’s fine.”

Harry’s eyes had widened; there’d been hurt there, and he’d shrunk away. But Draco knew that if Harry had wanted it enough, he would’ve come back.

Greg wrote him letters that made him laugh, and Pansy brought him booze. She tried talking about how awful Harry was, how stupid and annoying and close-minded, and Draco flinched from it, curling in on himself. “Don’t, Pansy. Please.”

“I thought you broke up with him,” she said quietly.

“I did.”

She poured more brandy.

The relationship had barely lasted six weeks. This was ridiculous. When was he going to get over this? 

He kept waiting to, and it wasn’t happening.

**February**

Harry injured himself the day after Valentine’s Day.

The game had gone on for close to two and a half hours; Draco was tired, and he wasn’t zooming around up there. The Cannons were over two hundred points behind, in the bloodbath to be expected of them facing the Tornadoes; the only thing now was trying to save the point differential via Harry catching the Snitch. Then it appeared. Draco missed it, the tiny gleam of gold pausing in its careening around the pitch, but he saw Harry swoop out of his hover above the pitch, falling into his fluid, signature dive.

He was such a beautiful flier. Draco wished he could stop noticing.

The Bludger didn’t come out of nowhere; it was too heavy for that, slamming towards Harry’s outstretched arm. But Harry was tired, and his eyes must have been on the Snitch. The ball slammed into Harry’s shoulder with a sickening crack and Harry was thrown away sideways like a leaf in the wind, spinning round and round, only one hand on the broom. Draco was over the barrier without knowing it, running across the pitch, eyes on Harry as he desperately chased him.

One of the Chasers caught Harry, stopping his wild spiral. Draco saw Harry slam into her before the Chaser - Jo, and thank Merlin for her - stabilised them both. They came down together, too fast, and Jo rolled them over as they hit, mitigating the force of it.

Harry didn’t do any of that. Draco wasn’t sure he was conscious.

His eyes were open when Draco reached them, though. The run had been wiped from Draco’s mind by panic; he seemed to blink and be there, doing diagnosis spells. Harry’s green eyes were wiped clean of emotion by the shock of the hit; he had Jo hold Harry up against her, keeping him upright.

“What’s going on?” John stood next to where Draco was kneeling on the pitch. “Harry, are you all right?”

“I - I think so? It hurt.”

“He’s not all right,” Draco said sharply. “He’s just in a bit of shock so he doesn’t know it yet. He’s sprained his shoulder badly - he could still dislocate it.”

John swore loudly. “How badly? He’s out for the game, but - ?”

“Weeks,” Draco said. “At a guess, thirty or forty days?”

“No!” Harry said as John swore some more. “Draco, that’s most of the season! There’ll be barely five games left by the time that’s over!”

“I’ll do what I can,” Draco said, projecting Calm Healer Voice with all his might. “It might be faster. But magic’s much better with snapped bone than stretched muscle.”

“Merlin,” John said, and Draco could hear the honest concern. “Come on, Harry, let’s get you off the pitch.”

Draco helped Harry off the pitch; he could walk perfectly well in theory, but shock had him moving a little drunkenly. The sub Seeker went on to a roar of welcome from the Cannons fans as they reached the tunnel.

“Try not to panic,” Draco told him. “This is fixable. And the fixing’ll take time but I can reduce the pain right now.”

“Great,” Harry said. Draco hoped he was too busy with his injury to think about how he had his left arm around Draco’s shoulders, and their sides pressed together. Draco was trying to be too busy with his job to think about how this was the first time they’d touched since the break-up. 

It wasn’t going especially well.

He handed Harry an anti-inflammation potion back in his office, then cast a carefully aimed chilling spell that would linger only round Harry’s shoulder. “All right. Stay upright as long as you can, okay? Resting’s good but don’t lie down.”

“Can I go home soon?”

“Fairly soon. I’ll finish the tests, and give you a couple of potions, I should think. And I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

“What time do you want me here?”

Draco hesitated. “If it’s all right, I can come to you,” he said. “It’s - bespoke service is part of why pro teams have their own medical staff, you know. And I’m not sure how your shoulder’ll be doing tomorrow, I don’t want you straining it. But that’s only if - ”

“Draco,” Harry said, warm and gentle. Draco’s mouth snapped shut. “Of course it’s all right.” He hesitated, and Draco looked away. In the end Harry said nothing.

Draco finished his magic in a silence full of the things neither of them were saying, and sent Harry on his way.

***

He sent Greg a letter that night. He couldn’t sleep, mind full of Harry’s injury and what it could mean, worry over treating the first serious injury the team had seen, and the idea of walking back into Grimmauld Place and trying to hold his distance.

He got one back at first light: enormous black letters in Greg’s awful handwriting, reading DON’T GO TO HIS HOUSE.

“If I were known for doing the clever thing, I wouldn’t be in this situation,” Draco told Viviane, and Flooed to Harry’s after breakfast.

Harry was waiting in his sitting room. Everything looked the same - why wouldn’t it? - and Draco was abruptly aware of what an idiot he’d been. Harry wasn’t on the sofa, thank Merlin, but Draco could still see the shadows of them there: sucking Harry off while he bit his hand so as not to pull Draco’s hair, Harry riding his cock while Draco dropped his head back against the sofa cushions and tried to breathe.

He blinked the afterimages away. “How’re you feeling?”

“Not the best.”

“Hmm. Details please?”

Harry talked while Draco did his diagnostic roster of spells, examining muscle and bone. It didn’t look great. “Can you take your shirt off?”

“Not really,” Harry admitted. “My shoulder…”

“Ah. Then do you mind if I…?”

“You’ve seen a lot more than that,” said Harry, and immediately looked like he wanted to die. Draco bit down on a laugh, half from amusement and half from pure relief that he wasn’t the only one feeling awkward.

He undid Harry’s buttons with a complicated wave of his wand, not by hand as he would’ve a little while ago. “How’s magic going?”

Harry gave a one-armed shrug. “The movements are… difficult. It’s not that bad, but spells have to be so precise, and you said I shouldn’t move my shoulder much anyway.”

“No,” Draco said, eyeing the damage. He pressed gently just under the joint and Harry huffed out a low sound.

It was just a small sound of pain, that told him what he needed as a Healer. It was exactly the same sound he made when Draco suckled at the head of his cock, before he went deeper - 

Maybe he _should_ try doing the clever thing, for once in his life.

“Listen,” Draco said. He kept his eyes on Harry’s injury, not his face. “Maybe someone else should take over for me. This is - there’s a reason Healers aren’t meant to have personal relationships with their patients.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Harry said, oh, and _now_ Draco could look directly at Harry, because he was pissed off. “You’re not giving up your job over this.”

“You’re right, I’m not. I’ve worked far too hard for that. But I could speak to John about having a physio come in. This seems ethically sticky.”

Harry snorted. “It’s not like you’re diagnosing me, or need to ask about the sex I’m not having,” he said. “You’re just the sports Healer.”

“Yes,” said Draco. “Just the sports Healer.”

“No, Draco, I didn’t mean ‘just’ like ‘only’, I meant - you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

Draco submitted to the hug, and breathed in Harry’s scent, and he did know Harry hadn’t meant it like that. 

Then he pulled back with a jerk. “Don’t hug me. Didn’t I tell you not five minutes ago about not using your right shoulder much?”

“It’s just a hug. What happened to you telling me I could do what I want?”

“We can go back to that if you want, Potter, if you’re not going to take my advice.”

“I don’t really want that, no.”

“All right. Let me tell you what I need you to do. It’s going to be physio every day, or almost every day, once things have healed a bit more - along with potions to drink and spells I’ll be doing as we go along. The massage therapist’ll be along to help, of course. Realistically, Potter, this is gonna be at least a month. It’ll feel mostly healed well before that, but that’s not at all the same as fully healed and in game-playing condition, so you’ve got to listen to me and not overstretch yourself, okay?”

“Promise.” 

Draco nodded.

“God you’re bossy,” Harry said in a low murmur. It was a painfully recognisable bedroom voice, and his eyes were beautiful and intent and knowing, and Draco flinched from it like fire.

“Harry - ”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said at once, and he sounded like it meant it, his eyes creasing as he took in Draco’s pained look. “I shouldn’t’ve - you broke up with me, and I’m trying to be okay with it, I am. I’m not going to make this hard for you - ”

Draco laughed jaggedly. “It’s already hard. You don’t need to make it anything.” 

He spent the next week going to Harry’s every day, and leaving after an hour or so of treatments, of talking to Harry and touching him, breathless with the close-but-no-cigar pain of it. He spent the evenings reminding himself of all the reasons he and Harry hadn’t worked. It wasn’t the cloud that had hung over him because of the attacks; he knew Harry hadn’t ever suspected him. It was his past, and Harry’s past, and the people they loved. Even if they fit, their worlds didn’t. And neither of them was willing to give up those things in order to fit.

Draco’s father had done terrible things, but so had Draco, and his father loved him as much as he ever had. (Even if Draco hadn’t always been sure that that was very much.) He wasn’t turning away from him, or from Pansy, or his mother, or anyone else.

_Harry never asked me to,_ whispered a small voice in the back of Draco’s mind. _And he was right about some of it. It’s not like I tell Father much about my life now. He doesn’t know I donate family Galleons to Muggleborn causes. Father would agree with Harry that I’m walking away from him._

That wasn’t the point. He’d been shredded by a six-week relationship. He wasn’t begging to be taken back, to take that risk again. If Harry did want him back

_Coward_ , whispered the voice.

“Probably,” Draco said aloud. “But it’s the clever thing.”

***

And yet he couldn’t stop himself poking at the situation, like playing with a bruise.

“Have you seen Dan Hanchard recently?” Draco said, attempting an airy chatty tone and vastly failing at it.

“What? No. What?”

“Well, he saved your life, you know. And you two do get on. I thought maybe…”

“Who needs someone to rescue me from bad guys? This is post-war Britain, Draco, haven’t you been reading the _Prophet_? I need someone to help me rebuild!”

“If you say so.”

Draco seemed to spend most of his time at the Cannons stadium talking about Harry. It started as giving updates on his condition to John and a few others, and quickly became him standing there while other people talked about how awful it was for Harry, and how very sympathetic they were, and would he mind bringing Harry a present, fruit baskets were so heavy for an owl.

Draco ended up Flooing to Grimmauld Place with a tottering pile of presents given by Harry’s colleagues. It was so tall he couldn’t see over the top of it, but he’d promised repeatedly that he wouldn’t use magic because it could interact badly with the charms keeping the Potent Poppies (good for sleep and pain relief, Almas had said, as Draco raised an eyebrow) calm.

He survived the bumpy Floo ride but as he came to a halt in Grimmauld Place’s sitting room fireplace, he took a step forward and tripped over the fireguard.

The worst part was how predictable it was.

Presents went flying as Draco staggered extravagantly. He managed to stay upright but it was a close-run thing, and he flinched at the sound of the Poppies snarling. Harry, sitting on the sofa, burst out laughing, and Draco found himself laughing too at the contagious sound.

“Presents for you, golden boy,” he said, gesturing at the debris on the carpet.

“Watching that was already the best present I could’ve had,” said Harry. Draco made a face, and tried not to notice the brightness of Harry’s smile.

He checked on the progress of Harry’s injury, which was about where he’d expected it to be, and started the next round of spells. “Does it hurt?” he asked as he worked. “I gave you that potion, but I know we talked about not using too much of it.”

“Because you don’t trust me not to overdo it without a bit of pain telling me where the line is,” said Harry. “Which is annoying but honestly, probably fair enough. And yeah, not really in my arm but my shoulder aches.”

Draco nodded. “Probably where you’re holding yourself stiffly because of the pain, and not using the arm much. Let me finish this and I’ll see what I can do. I can try giving you a massage.”

“Great,” Harry said in slightly strangled tones. Draco looked up at him and found Harry staring up at the ceiling, face tense. There was a short pause while Draco worked, and then Harry said, “so how’s Pansy?”

Draco frowned a little. “She’s fine.”

“Good,” Harry said. “Great. And, er, Greg? I know you said he was up for that thing at work.”

“He’s… what are you doing, Harry?”

“What? Are we gonna pretend we don’t know each other? Just have it be like before we were friends and it’s really awkward and nothing’s ever happened between us?”

“Yes!” He couldn’t be torn at by this intimacy any more.

Harry jerked back, and Draco saw the pain in his face. “Draco, you can’t - you can’t be serious.”

Draco bit his lip, saying nothing.

“Come on! That’s stupid, Draco, that’s - I’m not pushing you, I haven’t asked for anything, but - d’you just regret even - ”

Draco interrupted, wanting to cut off the conversation. “I don’t have to answer your questions, Potter.”

“Of course not,” Harry snapped. His green eyes were bright with hurt and anger; he tried crossing his arms instinctively, then hissed with pain. “I’m just a Quidditch player. And not even that any more.” He laughed roughly.

“I didn’t say that,” said Draco sharply. He shut his eyes for a long moment, not wanting to see that look on Harry’s face. He’d avoided thinking about what Harry might be feeling, trying to tell himself that the Boy Who Lived wouldn’t miss him. Thinking that he’d done that to Harry, made his voice go rough with pain -

“This is why I didn’t want to talk,” he said. His voice attempted evenness, but wavered and almost broke. “I wanted to - you said you wanted me to be your Healer. If that’s going to work, we can’t - ”

“Fine,” Harry interrupted. “Fine. So then - ” He made a nameless gesture with his left hand. “Let’s do it.”

“I - all right, then.” Draco stood. “Stay there, and I’ll…” He trailed off, not quite able to repeat the words _try giving you a massage_ now there was all this emotion between them, brought to the surface. Harry nodded anyway, shifting around to make space for Draco to stand behind him.

A moment’s awkward pause while Draco got up the courage to ask him about removing his t-shirt, and then Harry did it with a wave of his wand, clearly not wanting to use his injured arm.

Draco had tried coming up with ways to keep this businesslike and professional the night before; he’d imagined being brisk and calm, with no pauses or softer touches. This didn’t need to be significant, he’d told himself. He’d touched Harry when he’d been injured during the game.

But this was the first time since they’d broken up that he and Harry had touched without the panic of unknown injury blurring the moment. He heard Harry suck in a breath as Draco made contact. The warmth of Harry’s body, the familiarity of the touch, the pleasure that tingled through him at his hands on Harry - Draco swallowed hard.

A sense memory assaulted him: holding onto Harry’s shoulders, letting Harry support him as he sunk down onto Harry’s cock, Harry clutching at his hips and groaning into his neck, the sweet stretch. Draco blinked it away, focusing ferociously on his job. Years of Healer training wasn’t going to waste because he’d got stupidly emotional over touching Harry’s _shoulder_ , for Merlin’s sake. Harry needed him to be better than this. And it was his chance to prove himself, to do good work with the first serious injury the Cannons had seen this season.

Harry’s shoulder was all in knots, the muscle hard under his hands. Harry was angry and in pain, so that was unsurprising. Draco worked in silence, and Harry seemed uninclined to break it; Draco could see the edge of his scowl.

Even with Harry still angry with him, Draco felt Harry’s shoulder start to ease under his touch: their bodies talked to each other through the silence. Draco bit his lip, trying to force his massage impersonal and sports-related. He thought it was mostly working.

And Harry was breathing more easily. Draco could still help make Harry’s body work, the crucial tool he needed; and it seemed Harry still trusted his Healer, even when he was angry with Draco. Draco found himself almost smiling.

He spoke very quietly, so that Harry could pretend he hadn’t heard if he wanted to. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. Me too.”

The silence eased as Draco finished his work, and by the time he left, they were both smiling.

***

Three days later Harry wasn’t smiling. He was lying on his sofa surrounded by presents sent by teammates and well-wishers, and the dejection around him was so potent Draco half-expected to see a stormcloud appear over Harry’s head.

Irritation itched under Draco’s skin at the sight of Harry’s self-pity - or rather, at the lack of impact all the sympathy was having. Draco would’ve killed for such a reaction. Still, he reminded himself that Harry was in lingering pain, and he’d probably earnt some pouting after spending his adolescence being stoic about the Dark Lord chasing him down.

“How are you?” he said, summoning all the bedside manner he could.

“Fine, thanks.” Harry looked up and caught Draco’s look. “Honestly! It’s just depressing being out of the game for so long. I finally chose to do this and now I’m not even doing it.”

“I can understand that.” Draco pushed a few presents aside and sat on the coffee table to start casting charms on Harry’s arm. “Are you keeping busy? Seeing friends?”

“Yeah, they’re being great, especially since, er. I didn’t keep up with them much last autumn. But Ron’s in talks to open a Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes in Nottingham and Hermione’s in the middle of applying for grants to keep the werewolf rights research going and Neville’s planning his wedding and Luna’s in Peru. I can’t play with Teddy when I’m like this. Everybody’s really busy and I’m just…” He waved a frustrated arm at himself.

“You’re getting through it, is what you’re doing. Bit by bit.”

“Dunno about that.”

“I’m not worried,” Draco said, then laughed at Harry’s scowl. “You’ll get through this; I know you will.”

“I know, I know, I defeated Voldemort, this should be easy,” said Harry gloomily.

“Not really. You moved on from that, is more what I meant. You recovered from that, so you can definitely recover from this too.”

Harry blinked at him.

“...What?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. “I’ve just been getting a lot of sympathy letters about how I killed Voldemort so I can kill this injury or something.”

Draco snorted. “As if killing the Dark Lord was the point.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, obviously it was important,” Draco said, abruptly realising what he’d said. “It was great. I’m definitely pleased he’s dead.”

“Stop talking,” Harry said, laughing. “I know you wanted him dead but you’re somehow making it sound like you’re lying.”

Draco laughed. “All right, well. My point is that - Merlin, I wasn’t planning to talk seriously today - but you told me about what happened.” He’d fully lost the battle over acknowledging what had been between them, at least for today, so he ploughed on. “What you did that was really brave was be willing to die. You went there to save everyone, knowing he’d kill you.”

“It was worth it.”

“Would you stop being so heroic for one single second?” Draco said, attempting a laugh to hide how close he was to kissing him. When had he developed a liking for bravery and self-sacrifice in men? His mother would be horrified. “The point is, you did that. And then you still came back - you didn’t just go on with Dumbledore and disappear in a flame of heroic glory. You did all of that and then you were willing to live.”

Harry smiled crookedly. “I guess you’d know about willing to live.”

“My family does have a certain talent for survival,” Draco agreed. “We continue, at all costs.”

“Mmm.”

There was a long moment where all he could hear was their breathing, before Draco overcame his hesitation. “But - I hope - not at other people’s expense. Maybe.”

Harry smiled at him. “Not any more.”

**March**

That mood between them didn’t last. Draco wasn’t going to let it when he was holding onto the reasons he and Harry shouldn’t be together by his fingernails. They were both on their second chance at life after the war - Quidditch player having fun, Healer doing his best - and he couldn’t take any more risks with it for the sake of Harry’s crooked smile.

Not that Harry was smiling much at the moment. He was clearly going mad from boredom, not to mention the loneliness and lingering pain - and a touch of self-pity. Everyone’s sympathy for Harry brought out a touch of Draco’s old envy. He’d been subtly bitching for days because of it; Harry, slightly annoyingly, had resisted responding, though Draco had managed to make his jaw twitch once or twice.

Draco needed to control himself better. They were both itching for a fight.

Draco frowned at today’s diagnostic spell, and cast it again. The same shades of purple and teal glowed around Harry’s arm once again.

“How is it?” Harry said. He sounded edgy and Draco wished he’d developed a better poker face in Healer training.

“Not awful,” he said truthfully. “But your recovery’s not where I’d hoped it would be. We may need to start talking about options for more invasive treatments - the harder end of the potions spectrum.”

Harry was silent for a moment. “What if I can’t be a pro player any more?”

“This doesn’t change what I’ve said about that before, Harry - it might shorten your career but that’s not at all the same thing as being out of the game. Your arm will likely be fine - ”

“Likely.”

“Almost certainly.”

“Very unlikely things happen to me a lot, you know. Especially when I try to enjoy myself, or do things other than fight evil. I really wanted to be a Quidditch player - ”

“You’re still a Quidditch player!”

“I’m not playing, am I? How am I a player if I’m benched?” Harry’s throat worked. “This was - this was meant to be my second chance and I’m just sitting in this house waiting to get better - ”

“Cry me a river, maybe it’ll very slowly erode my mountain of student debt.”

“Fuck off,” Harry snapped, “I should’ve known you couldn’t show empathy if you weren’t getting paid for it.”

That hit like a whip, slicing skin open in its wake. Draco flinched backwards, mind wiped clean of retorts for a moment by shock. Harry reached out, guilt already forming on his features, and Draco stood up, backing out of his reach.

“What kind of empathy are you looking for, golden boy? How sad for you, you might have to choose yet another glamorous career where people will talk about how wonderful you are?”

“That’s not what I’m looking for, it’s not why I became a Quidditch player and you know it - ”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Draco snarled. “Don’t worry, Potter, it’s not like you’ll have to go back to a job where you’d put in real effort.”

Harry’s eyes were wide and hurt. Draco wrenched his own eyes away and headed for the Floo. His hand shook a little as he tossed the Floo powder into the flames, spraying green glitter over his shoes, but he didn’t look back.

He’d been right to end it, Draco told himself (and Viviane) all night. This proved it. 

He swallowed against the guilt, thick and gelatinous in his throat, choking him. Shut his eyes against the memory of Harry’s face. He tried chasing away the guilt with the memory of what Harry had said to him, but he couldn’t bear to linger on it. On the idea that Harry might really think that, that the only kind of empathy Draco had learnt was the kind necessary to make his desperately needed second chance of a job work.

Maybe he was even right. Draco was shocked by what he’d said to Harry; by how easily they’d returned to ripping into each other. He’d done just what he’d always done, recognising Harry’s weak point and attacking.

And that was it. He’d ruined his second chance. They both had.

The next day Draco chickened out: he sent an owl to John claiming he was ill, and asking Almas to go to Grimmauld Place for him. He spent the day rattling around his house, reading the _Prophet_ morosely and half-drinking cups of tea. Viviane followed him round, miaowing anxious questions about why he was still here and seemed so depressed. She came and slept on his chest for a while, and he stroked along her back and purred at her. But it didn’t help much with the pointless pain radiating through his chest.

He’d wrecked it. It was like a second, smaller break-up, that they’d failed to get along even when the stakes were smaller.

But he couldn’t give up. He needed to make sure Harry was fully healed, and he was the Healer. He might not be a hero but he could do this - he could fix that much.

So the next morning he was at Grimmauld Place bright and early.

He came out of the fireplace and Harry’s head snapped up. He was sitting on the sofa, but he stood as Draco appeared. “Draco! I - ”

Harry looked like he was about to subject them both to more pointless, painful naked emotion. He couldn’t have that; he’d already admitted to himself that he was too scared of it to try saying sorry. Harry wouldn’t expect that anyway, surely? It was a classic pureblood code: never apologise, never explain. And he was still a classic pureblood.

“Honestly, Harry, I hope you’re being reasonable,” he interrupted. “I can tell you’ve been - yes, see that shade there?” he said as he swirled his wand, watching the diagnostics light up like fireworks. “You’re reaching too far, too fast. You can’t be doing that. I don’t want to tell you off all the time - here’s a potion, though, and it tastes awful which you entirely brought on yourself.”

Harry swallowed it obediently, then made a series of hilarious faces while Draco tried not to laugh. “Oh God. I’m sorry, all right? I went flying yesterday.”

“I knew it. You can’t reach too far, too fast on this - I know your signature move is crazy dives and going too fast and having it somehow work out - ”

Harry’s face lit up. “You like my dives?”

Draco sniffed. “I didn’t say that.”

“Of course not,” Harry agreed solemnly, a smile tugging at his mouth. The crooked smile, endearing and attractive, made Draco’s heart seize up and he looked away to hide it, rolling his eyes.

“Apparently no one taught you this when you were young, but you need to take better care of yourself.”

Harry’s smile got bigger. “Back to empathy of a sort then, are we?”

Draco felt himself freeze, like a hurt animal. It had killed him, what Harry had said, just killed him. Harry took in his expression and winced.

“I’m sorry, Draco,” he said, eyes crinkling in concern. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He didn’t even hesitate. He just said it, open and fearless and unashamed. 

Draco wondered when he’d forgotten about making mistakes that were small enough that he could apologise for them. 

“Me too,” he said. “I mean - what I said, the other day, it wasn’t fair.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “But I goaded you, I think. And I’m just glad you’re back. I’d rather you tell me off than tell me I can do whatever I want.”

Draco gave him a bemused smile.

***

It was harder holding himself back from Harry when they were getting on. It grated at his heart to be around him, to be talking and friendly, but nothing more. But Harry was bored and lonely and stir-crazy, and this was what Draco could do. 

“Besides,” as Pansy had said with an unhappy laugh, “you were always a bit of a masochist.”

The first time Harry beat him at chess, Draco gaped at him in outrage. “You - how - !”

“Ron’s one of the best chess players Hogwarts has ever seen,” said Harry mildly. “A bit of strategy had to rub off eventually.”

“Strategy?” Draco sputtered. “You? Come on, you were always clever but you’re not a long-term thinker!”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Good to know we’re all doomed to stay who we were as children forever.”

Draco huffed.

“Wait, I take back the sarcasm. Apparently you’re just as sore a loser as ever.”

“Yep,” Draco said fervently, and threw a pillow at him.

A few days later came a major breakthrough with Harry’s arm. 

“You mean it?” Harry said, bouncing on the sofa beside Draco like a child. “I can go back to flying?”

“Yep. No practicing yet, not full-time, but you can work on building up the muscle again.”

“Thank you so much, Draco. Thank you! This is such a relief, I can’t tell you. And you’ve been great, putting up with me while I’ve been so bored of everything, and now I get to go and fly! You should come flying with me!”

Harry was beaming at him, bright and alive and gorgeous. He was letting Draco help him, and so kind and grateful, and he wasn’t dead or in danger any more. Draco might hate himself later but this moment was worth it: he leant over and kissed him.

And after a moment of shock, Harry’s whole body leant into his as he kissed Draco back. They moved closer together, their mouths parting then meeting again. Draco shivered as Harry’s hands stroked over his hair, and he brushed a hand over Harry’s face. They kept searching for more points of contact, until Draco was in Harry’s lap, laughing into Harry’s mouth as he awkwardly avoided putting any weight on Harry’s shoulder, and Draco’s whole body was warm from Harry’s heat.

“I was going to resist,” he said breathlessly, still running his hands over Harry’s back and arms, unable to stop touching him. “I wasn’t going to kiss you.”

Harry laughed, sounding half-choked. “You’re terrible at resistance.”

“Yep,” said Draco. “Famous coward. I don’t care.”

“You’re not a coward,” Harry said, frowning.

“Don’t argue with me,” said Draco. “Kiss me.”

Harry obeyed. He wrapped both arms round Draco and pulled him closer, and Draco pulled back. “Stop it, I’m not having you strain your arm and you’ve already done your exercises for today,” he said. “We’re not celebrating this progress by having you damage yourself again. You just lie back and - ” He squeaked as Harry tweaked his nipple.

“You’re being bossy.”

“You love it,” Draco told him.

Harry rolled his eyes, but then a smile broke out. “I do, a little.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why don’t you put me on bed rest, Healer?”

And bare minutes later Draco had Harry under him again: smiling up from under that mop of black hair, with acres of skin available for Draco to touch. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t quite move for a moment, and Harry took advantage, teasing at Draco’s nipples and stroking his cock until Draco was choking on his moans.

He took his time stretching Harry, slicking him; he didn’t want to fuck Harry yet, though his cock was aching. He wanted to watch Harry come apart first. The low, breathless sounds that became full-throated groans - the way his back arched with pleasure, sending electricity through Draco’s bones - Harry clutching at the sheets, visibly straining not to come as Draco stroked and rubbed him mercilessly -

“Come on,” Draco said with a low chuckle. His laugh spluttered into a gasp as Harry took rough hold of his hair and tugged his face upwards.

“Fuck me now,” Harry said hoarsely. He pulled at Draco’s hair again, and Draco was surprised by the shock of desire that went through him. “I’m not coming until you’re inside me, you insufferable little…”

“Yeah, all right,” Draco interrupted, and then he was lining himself up and sliding home.

He caught his breath. They paused, staring at each other, hardly breathing, for a long moment; Draco felt broken open, and Harry’s eyes were so unashamedly full of emotion he could hardly meet them. Harry brushed the back of his hand down Draco’s face and it was like something collapsing inside Draco’s chest, the shock of painful affection and relief.

It was the rhythm and scent and feeling he knew, but better: after the painful effort of separation, of keeping themselves apart, this was the sweet relief of coming back together. 

Harry’s orgasm came quickly, and it was the best thing Draco had ever seen: all the lines of pain and strain in his face melted away as he cried out, eyes closed and mouth open, helpless, clenching round Draco’s cock. The shudders went on and on, wracking their way through both men, and then Draco couldn’t take it any more; Harry’s orgasm pulled Draco’s from him in turn. The pleasure thrummed through his whole body, from clenching toes to quivering thighs to spurting cock to howling throat. He collapsed atop Harry, and Harry wrapped his arms round him in turn.

After a moment Draco moved to Harry’s left side, so none of his weight would be on Harry’s bad arm, and shut his eyes.

He decided not to tell Harry he loved him yet. Harry might not believe it; people were famously untrustworthy when they’d just had great sex. Besides, this was only the start. He’d have plenty of other opportunities to say it.

Wait, were they actually back together? Definitely? Draco searched his memory. They hadn’t said it, so what if this was sex-with-the-ex to get out some understandable frustration, and -

“Love you, Draco.”

Draco felt his body go lax. “I love you too. Obviously.”

Harry’s laugh vibrated through Draco’s chest.

Surely they could find a way to make this work. Please.


	7. Chapter 7

A few days later found them on the sofa in the drawing room one late afternoon. Draco had done his spells, and the massage, which had all ended in Draco arse-up over the sofa while Harry did some much-needed exercise and proved how much his grip was improving.

“We’ve not spent much time in here before, have we?” Draco said.

“Not any, I don’t think,” said Harry. “I don’t like it much, usually.”

“Because of the tapestry?” asked Draco. “I… well. I know the Black family hasn’t been an unalloyed good in your life.”

“You’re on it,” Harry grinned, “and I can think of some unalloyed good things about you.” He groped Draco’s arse and Draco laughed, enjoying the coarseness in this overbearingly posh room.

“Same to you.” A few moments of easy silence passed before he spoke again. “It’s really weird being here sometimes.”

“Because of the Black tapestry?” Harry said in surprise.

“Because of… everything. I don’t mean this room, I mean the house. Don’t get me wrong,” he added hurriedly, “I’m glad to be here, and I like being in _your_ place. It’s just that it’s also… I don’t know. I’ve got a really complicated relationship with my family history, and it feels so strange to be right in the ‘toujours pur’ heart of it with you.”

“Does being with me feel like running away from all that?” Harry asked quietly.

“Usually, yeah. And sometimes I like that.” Draco changed the subject slightly, and was relieved when Harry let him - Harry’s Auror interrogative training made him very good at noticing when Draco was deflecting, even if he was usually kind enough not to mention it. “Are there any pictures of my mum around? This is the ancestral pile, really - my mum’s side had the country house and that got destroyed during Voldemort’s first rise.”

“I dunno. There’s still loads of stuff I’ve never looked at, to be honest, especially in the attics. But Sirius - you know, he got rid of a lot of stuff from the family.”

“Yeah, from the little I’ve heard, that doesn’t surprise me.” Draco scowled at the thought. Purebloods were meant to be about family first, and Sirius had turned away from them.

But Bellatrix had killed him. Draco glanced up at the tapestry, eyes finding the horrible black holes where people had been burnt out of the family record. He laughed unevenly, looking up at it.

“Draco?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, not looking away from the tapestry. “I just… I was just thinking that I didn’t like the idea of Sirius getting rid of photos and heirlooms, and how my mum - she didn’t talk about him much, but she said Sirius had turned away from the family. And how wrong that was. And it’s just bollocks. I don’t know, I mean obviously I know now that all that pureblood ideology is complete rubbish. There’s no difference between purebloods and Muggleborns, they just made it all up, it’s just… it’s just people wanting power.” Harry was nodding. “And I… I’m trying to work through it all, and I’ll think I’ve stopped believing it all and stopped being fooled, but there’re still more layers of shit they taught me underneath it. Still more I haven’t even thought to question.”

Harry put his arm round him, and Draco let his body sag into Harry’s. 

“They said being a pureblood was about putting your family first, and maybe they even believed that… but…” He made himself finish the words. “I know what Mum did to Sirius. With Kreacher, you know.” Harry nodded. Draco couldn’t see his face, but they were still wrapped up in each other, Harry’s hair brushing his cheek, and it let him continue even now he’d put a name to one of the dreadful things in their shared past. “And Bellatrix, what she did… they didn’t put family first.”

“Yeah,” Harry said quietly. “But y’know - your mum would’ve done anything to protect you. She lied to Voldemort’s face for you.”

“Yeah, I know. I just… I want to believe I can still take what’s good from what I was taught as a child, and excise the rest. And I don’t know if I’m fooling myself. If the whole thing was always rotten and corrupted.”

“You don’t need to understand it all right now. It’s the work of a lifetime, sometimes, working through your childhood. And my aunt and uncle’d laugh to hear me say that. All New Age-y and Americanish.” Draco drew back far enough to give Harry a bemused look, and Harry laughed ruefully. “Never mind.”

There were a few moments of silence before Harry spoke again. “You know I wouldn’t ask you to turn away from your family, don’t you?”

“You hate my family,” said Draco in surprise.

“Yeah - I mean, er. Well, yeah. I don’t really hate your mum, exactly… I don’t know. The point is, they love you a lot, and they’d do anything for you, and I’m the last person who’d ever ask someone to turn away from parents like that.”

Harry’s voice turned strained on the last words, and it made Draco’s chest hurt. He hugged Harry closer, awkward and one-armed and fervent. Harry made a startled sound but hugged him back. 

Harry was a grown man, and he’d fought off darkness greater than anything Draco had ever faced. This urge to protect him was completely ridiculous, and Draco was going to stop hugging Harry and swearing to kill anyone who’d hurt him any second now.

Strange; in Draco’s memory, eleven-year-old Harry had been talented and tough and the source of a stunning rejection, with the protection of fame and teachers who liked him better than they’d ever like Draco. It was incredibly odd to look back at that boy through an adult’s eyes and see a lonely child.

“Are you okay?” asked Harry.

Draco huffed a quiet laugh into his shoulder. “I should be asking you that. Or should’ve asked, ages ago. I’m fine.”

“All right.” Harry sounded a little bewildered.

Draco swore silently at himself. Time to be brave enough to say the words and talk about the difficult things. Harry would’ve been brave enough. Harry already had.

“I didn’t really know that, actually,” he admitted. “That you’d think it was all right for me to - not to reject them.”

“What?”

“I - at Christmas, I went to Azkaban with my mum, to see my father. And he’s so - it’s so awful, Harry, he’s so thin and miserable. He used to be so powerful, and now it’s like - it’s like he’s barely alive. I can’t - I can’t turn away from them, I can’t reject him. I couldn’t ever. But I _know_ , I know what he did… And I don’t tell him about my life really. I tell him about being a Healer but I don’t tell him how much I hate what he did, or about trying to be less prejudiced against the Muggleborn and learn about the real history of it all or that I’m - that I was with you. And I don’t know if it’s because he’s frail and I hardly ever see him and I can’t ruin the time we have, or because I’m just too much of a coward to show him who I really am. Who I want to be.”

“God, Draco. That’s - it’s not cowardly. It’s just… it’s hard, and I’ve got no idea what I’d do.”

“I thought you’d hate it,” said Draco, voice raw. “It’s - when I saw you, on New Year’s Eve, and you said they’d caught him… it’s why I ended it, really. It just seemed like… I’d just come back from seeing my father and telling him only the things I thought would make him proud. And being with my mother in the house where the Dark Lord… You’re so brave, and you fought evil, and so did everyone you love. And I couldn’t imagine how we’d fit, or that you’d understand.” His voice was wobbling. “You wouldn’t keep loving someone who’d done what they did.”

“Draco…” Harry pulled him in against him, holding on fiercely, and Draco breathed in Harry’s scent and tried not to cry. “I’m so sorry I made you feel like that. That you couldn’t love them and be with me.”

“But they’re - I was at the trial! He would’ve killed Ginny Weasley - he didn’t know what would happen for sure, but he didn’t give a shit if the worst did happen, when she was eleven and he was angry with her father.” He was crying now, something breaking open inside him. “Why do I still… I don’t even want to stop loving him. Not really. What does that say about me?”

“That you love your father. That’s all. It’s - that’s almost impossible to fight. It doesn’t have to say anything else.”

“That’s a cop-out,” Draco said. His eyes and chest hurt with the tears he was trying to hold back. “I say it to myself all the time but that doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“I don’t know, Draco, I don’t have all the answers. But I don’t - all I ever wanted was a family, you know, was to feel at home. Hogwarts was the - that’s not the point. All I know is I’d never ask you to turn away from your parents for me.”

“Then here’s what I know,” Draco said, and he pulled back from Harry’s comforting hold so that Harry could see his eyes, and could see how serious he was. “I can’t stop being who I am for you, even if I wish I could sometimes. I won’t stop loving my family, and I can’t walk away from my past.” He pulled up his sleeve to expose the Dark Mark scar. “But I would walk away from them for you if they made me.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Harry. His eyes were huge in the fading light.

“I do. I hope they’ll accept this, but if they didn’t… I know what I’d choose. Because you - you don’t make me choose between the right thing and loving someone. You’re both.”

Harry kissed him. Draco opened his mouth, kissing back fervently, breath shuddering with emotion and then increasing desire. He shifted onto his back, wanting Harry on top of him, the security of feeling Harry’s weight and warmth against him. It was different, this time; so often they giggled and teased and talked through sex, or at least through foreplay. But they’d both said so much already that words felt an impossible distance away. The only way left to communicate today was in stroking hands and sucked-in breaths and tightening muscles, kisses and small, happy sounds and eye contact he’d once been nervous of.

They couldn’t be bothered with the fuss and messiness of lube, and Draco didn’t want to lose Harry on top of him for long enough to prepare. Instead he spread his thighs, one leg dropping off the sofa to make a space for Harry, and stroked their cocks in smooth rhythm. Harry disrupted the rhythm with kissing, with nips at his neck and nipples, with caresses along the sensitive spots at the small of his back that had Draco’s hips jerking up against Harry’s. It was perfect, awkwardly close and overheated and overwhelming. As Draco neared the edge, he couldn’t hold back his moaning, and Harry’s eyes, slitted though they were by pleasure, lit up.

“Yeah, come on baby, come on.” The endearment sent a flush of embarrassment and want through Draco. Harry fumbled around as Draco kept stroking both their cocks, cupping at Draco’s balls then rubbing at his hole. Draco moaned his pleasure, helpless, and Harry redoubled his efforts. “Yeah, like that, you sound amazing…” 

The praise and the pleasure together pulled Draco’s orgasm from him, wiping his mind of everything but Harry’s body there on his. Harry came bare moments later, groaning into Draco’s skin. 

Draco’s limbs felt lit up with the aftereffects of orgasm. He smiled, fumbling for his wand, and managed to clean them both before he let his eyes drop shut.

They dozed together and when they woke up it was full dark. “Wow, I’m glad I went to the stadium before I came here,” Draco yawned. Harry got up long enough to light the fire and close the curtains with waves of his wand. At Draco’s complaining whine he came back and settled on top of Draco again, his head dropping onto Draco’s shoulder.

“I s’pose we should get food soon,” Harry mumbled.

“Yeah.”

They didn’t move.

Eventually thoughts came drifting back to Draco’s mind, and he made himself say them before he could convince himself not to. “I didn’t really ask you before… you’ve been to the Manor, and that was terrible.” Draco listened carefully to Harry’s breathing but it didn’t change in its rhythm. Maybe he could’ve mentioned this before after all. “And it’s… I don’t know. I can feel the weight of my family connections here.”

“You can?” Harry sounded worried. “Do you not like it here?”

“I do.” He dropped a kiss on Harry’s head. “It’s just peculiar at times. But I wanted to ask if it was ever strange for you, living here.”

“Huh. I suppose I never thought of it that way. I mean there were all sorts of horrible relics here when I first came - we spent the summer before fifth year at war with the house - and Sirius hated it here, and it was all dismal and depressing… it’s still dim, parts of it… I’ve lost my train of thought. The point is, it belonged to Sirius. He’s still who I think of when I come home here, even if he didn’t like it much.”

Draco paused. “D’you want to tell me about him?”

“Yes,” Harry said, so quickly his words overlapped with Draco’s. “I don’t always know how, though… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say it all tonight,” Draco told him, warm and a little daring. “We’ve got time.”

Draco felt Harry’s smile against his skin. Harry spoke without looking up at him, the words puffing out in humid air across Draco’s chest. “Right. I don’t know… I didn’t meet him until I was nearly fourteen, and he had to go on the run again the same night. He was great - he got things about me, and he tried to help me and tell me what I needed to know. He was on the run but he still came back to Britain when he knew I was in danger, even though he could’ve been caught and he ended up stuck in this house he hated. And he - in the end he died fighting for me.”

“He sounds wonderful,” Draco said quietly.

“Yeah… it’s hard, though. Because I loved him, we loved each other, but - I didn’t know him very well. We sent letters but it all had to be secret, and we barely… I mean two years after I met him he was - he was dead.”

“I’m sorry, Harry.”

Harry took a deep, uneven breath. When he looked up at Draco his eyelashes were slightly damp, but the crooked smile Draco loved best was there.

“It’s - obviously I wish he was still around. But he protected me. He did what he could, and - ”

“That’s what’s important,” Draco finished the thought.

“Exactly.” Harry’s smile was small but luminous, and Draco couldn’t look away.

***

“I found something,” Harry said, and Draco looked up from his medical journal.

“Yeah? You’re gonna have to be more specific, your house is full of the crap of centuries.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Cynic.” He took his arm from behind his back, showing a bright package in Christmas wrapping paper: holly-green, with little red berries that occasionally quivered to shake off the falling snow. “It was gonna be your Christmas present.”

“What? You gave me my Christmas present.”

“What, the Quidditch book? Nah, that was… well, honestly, I got embarrassed that I’d bought you this. So I wanted to get you something less, er, intimate.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Harry Potter, did you buy me a sex toy?”

“Not that kind of intimate!” Harry thrust it at him, blushing. “Just open it, would you?”

“Well, it’s definitely not Christmas any more, but I always like presents.” Draco tore into the wrapping paper, and found a dark wooden box. He opened the box at its hinges, and inside lay three beautiful quills in different shades of green: seaglass, moss, and the emerald of Harry’s eyes. There was a set of handmade paper in ivory white, and cakes of ink in different shades from royal blue to deepest black, and a silver inkpot circled by a little silver dragon. The dragon seemed to be asleep, breathing in little puffs of silvery smoke.

Draco was breathless for a moment. “It’s so beautiful.”

“I thought so,” Harry said, sounding a little shy. “But it’s not why I bought it. I know - I remembered at the time, you were really stressed out because the Aurors were at work and following us home, and you didn’t want them to screen your post even though you were getting all those horrible letters. I thought you probably didn’t want to risk them reading what you were getting from Pansy and Goyle and your parents.”

Draco nodded.

“So I got you this. If you use the writing set, no one but you and the person you’re writing to can read the letters. They’re not invisible, that’d be too obvious - instead it looks like a really bland, generic letter, just chatting away. The inks all have different passwords, and you can use different quills for different people, and - ”

“This must’ve cost a fortune,” Draco said.

Harry shrugged.

“And this - it’s perfect, Harry. Something so I wouldn’t worry so much. And to prove you really, truly trusted me.”

“Of course I did.”

“I know that now, but this…” He stood and caught Harry in a long hug, holding him so Harry wouldn’t see his closing throat in his face, and was so glad they’d come back to each other.

***

Soon after that Draco suggested that he and Harry have dinner with Ron and Hermione.

Harry dropped his fork, splattering baked beans everywhere. “What?”

“Wow,” Draco said, raising his eyebrows. “Lose some coordination there, did you? Good thing you’re not a professional athlete or anything.”

“No mocking me for being surprised. _You’re_ suggesting this? And you didn’t call them names or anything.”

Draco shrugged, his eyes on his fork as he twirled it aimlessly. “You’re going stir-crazy, and I know they’re busy but I’m sure they want to see you.”

“And you’ll see them?”

“I just said so, didn’t I?” He felt his cheeks heat and cursed his pale skin.

Harry kissed him on the cheek. “Promise not to put any toxins in Ron’s food.”

“I’m not the one who runs Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes,” said Draco, and Harry laughed.

“Fair point. I promise to protect you, then.”

“How gallant,” Draco drawled. “But I’m told the modern wizard isn’t looking for someone to protect him from bad guys.”

“God, why did I say that? Losing my biggest edge in the dating game.” Harry gave an exaggerated groan.

“I think you’re doing all right for yourself,” Draco said with a raised eyebrow.

“I do seem to have won a prize. But seriously, are you gonna be okay with this?”

“You’re the cook, aren’t you? So you needn’t worry about me poisoning your friends.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Be serious. You know I’m not demanding this of you, don’t you?”

“One thing I know about you already, Potter - something I should’ve thought about when we were cocooning ourselves in sex and food last winter. No one stays with you without being on decent terms with your friends.”

Harry smiled at him, wide and helpless. “Yeah. And how about yours? In Slytherin you make your real friends, I hear.”

“Don’t be scared,” Draco told him. “You stabbed a fifty-foot snake when you were twelve, that’s better preparation for Pansy on a rampage than most people ever get.”

***

They started relatively slow: just Ron and Hermione, as Draco kept calling them in his head, trying to practice so it’d sound natural when he used their given names. Draco suggested Ginny, since he was actually more-or-less friends with her already, but apparently the Harpies were still in the Euro league as well as national Quidditch and the Pendragon Cup and she was too busy and exhausted for dinner parties. Harry rubbed mulishly at his bad arm as he said this, and Draco suggested they go flying as a distraction.

Flying together was blissful. They Apparated to the Lake District, so it’d be less disastrous if the charms keeping them invisible somehow failed. And then they took off across the gorgeous landscape.

They swerved and soared and swooped across the sky together, moving in sync. Draco had barely flown for years and he wasn’t in anything like the shape Harry was, but Harry never made him feel inadequate. Instead they moved together, wind in their faces, yelling to each other over the roar of it as they caught sight of birds or strange colours glinting off the waters or another beautiful angle on the craggy mountains. 

Harry had always been a wonderful flyer, but being right there with him, not competing viciously or watching from the ground, had Draco appreciating it far more. When they landed, Harry brought out a picnic, and Draco ignored this charming idea in favour of tumbling him to the ground, finding another way of moving in sync.

It distracted Harry excellently, but he still invited Weasley and Granger - Ron and Hermione - and they still said yes. Harry made Draco’s unseasonal favourites, chestnut and Lancashire cheese salad with apple crumble and cream for pudding. Draco held onto the silent promise of allegiance, a golden little glow in his chest as the doorbell rang. 

Harry opened the door and Hermione’s frizzy brown hair exploded through the door. Behind her came Ron’s lanky form. They greeted Harry with their eyes already on Draco, eyeing him as if he was a scorpion. He hitched a smile onto his face.

He could be charming. He might be out of practice but he used to have the Slytherins roaring with laughter at his jokes.

Generally at these people’s expense. Shit. 

“Your arm seems so much better, Harry,” Hermione was saying. “Draco must be doing a good job!”

Draco started a little. She was nervous too. He hadn’t expected that.

“Yeah, that’s great,” said Ron. “D’you know when you might be back on the pitch? The Cannons need you, mate.”

“Draco probably knows better than I do,” Harry said, turning to him. “Draco?”

“I think probably a few more weeks,” Draco said. “He’ll be back before the end of the season.”

“Fantastic,” Ron said. 

The silence dragged on a second too long. “Shall I get everyone a drink?” Draco said, and realised too late at Ron and Hermione’s startled expressions that he probably shouldn’t have made the offer in someone else’s house. It just showed how much time he’d been spending at Grimmauld Place.

“Don’t worry about it, Draco,” said Harry. “I’m going to check on the food - there’s some white wine in the kitchen I can bring back.”

Draco gave him a nakedly pleading look - _don’t leave me!_ \- but Harry just smiled and darted out of the room.

There was a moment where they all stood there, staring at each other nervously, before Hermione said, “shall we all sit down?”

“Yes!” Draco and Ron said together.

“So, what’re you up to at the moment, Hermione?” Draco said, attempting his mother’s manners.

“Well, Harry might’ve told you I work in research now.”

“Yes. For the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?”

“I used to,” Hermione said, her eyes flashing.

“She’s not really a Ministry girl, Hermione.”

“I could be,” she said. “Maybe. For the right job and the chance to change the world.”

“So maybe in a century, once you’ve dragged them all into the future with you,” said Ron, a little teasing.

“Exactly,” she said, imperturbable. “But now it’s for a non-profit I’ve set up with Luna Lovegood. It’s to do with providing solid research on magical creatures, not the superstition and assumptions everyone’s been working with up til now, so we can try to fight prejudice and get the best outcomes.”

“That sounds amazing,” Draco said honestly. He’d forgotten the way Hermione Granger spoke when she was passionate about something. Even when she wasn’t angry with him, even with her sparking nebulas of righteous anger calmed by adulthood, she was a force of nature.

“It will be,” she said. “It’s rough at the moment though because we’re trying to prise more grant money out of the Wizengamot, and at the same time write up this big study on child werewolf social integration.”

“Is that difficult?” Draco asked, feeling a pulse of worry for his young cousin. 

“It can be, yes, although we’re coming up with strategies to improve things.”

“What about, er, semi-werewolves?”

Hermione looked startled for a moment, then she smiled. “Thinking about Teddy?”

Draco shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t see him very much - I should, I’m just, I’m bad with small children, and it seemed sort of like rubbing it in just after the war - you know, Aunt Andromeda was reuniting with my mother but she’d just lost her husband and child to the war and there my mother was with me. But I don’t want him to be - to be bullied, or anything.”

So much for the plan to be suave and charming and a master of pureblood manners. Idiot.

But the atmosphere in the room felt a little better, and he looked up and caught Ron looking at him consideringly. _Gryffindors. Of course they’d like me better when I’m awkward and - and care about things._

“Teddy’s on track to be just fine,” Hermione told him.

“Y’know, Harry sees Teddy a lot,” Ron said. “He’s his godfather, he takes that seriously.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He’d take you with him, if you wanted to see Teddy. I bet Andromeda’d be fine with it.”

Draco felt his eyes widen. Somehow he’d never thought of asking.

It hadn’t ever occurred to him that Harry could be a way to more of his family.

“So what’re you up to at the moment, Draco?” Hermione asked.

Shit. What could he say? The answer that immediately floated into his mind was _having a lot of sex to celebrate being back together with Harry_ , and Draco bit his lip to stop a hysterical giggle.

“What’re we talking about?” 

Draco felt himself relax a little at the sound of Harry’s voice. “Hermione was telling me how she’s changing the world,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” Harry said. “Saving it was just the start for her.”

Hermione gave a melodramatic sigh. “Sometimes I think I miss the war. At least there was a concrete endpoint.”

“But there were hardly any books in that tent,” Ron said, grinning.

“...Never mind.”

The first course went well, as Draco focussed on eating and let the three best friends carry the conversation. He tried to interject enough to seem engaged, but the three of them had enough in-jokes and news and ideas to share that he could be quiet and it wasn’t too noticeable.

Over the apple crumble, Draco tried asking Hermione about her work again; he thought it seemed interesting, and she was passionate enough about it that he thought it’d avoid any awkward silences. She told him about trying to get the trust of the werewolf community, and how damaged they were in the aftermath of the war - Greyback’s leadership had ravaged them, and the loss of him and the increased mistrust from others in the wake of him had only made it all worse. Draco had had no idea all this was happening, and Hermione nodded fiercely when he told her so.

“It’s nearly impossible to get the news out to people,” she said. “People in the wizarding world can be very - parochial, I suppose is the word - and it’s hard to get people to prioritise anything that isn’t immediately relevant to them when we’re all still coming out of the war.”

“We’ve got to do better than that,” he said, surprising himself with his fierceness. “If we stay tribal, if we think werewolves or whoever else are only important if we know them - that’s how the Dark Lord rose to begin with.”

“...Right,” Hermione said, and he got the impression she and Ron weren’t quite sure if he was making fun of her earnestness.

“Luna must really help with all that,” he said, trying to move on. “With the _Quibbler_ , you know, to get the information to people. And even if her father was a bit, erm, eccentric, she’s pureblood enough to be trustworthy to the crustier Wizengamot members.”

“Right,” Ron said, glaring. “Merlin knows she couldn’t get anything done without a pureblood, eh? Luna’s great, but honestly, you’re bloody allergic to giving Hermione the credit she deserves, aren’t you?”

Draco felt words rise up inside him, sharp behind his teeth. The instinctive knowledge of where to attack was still there. _Sure, defend her like she needs it from you, Weasley - make sure she gets credit for being special, someone should since you never will - what would you know about important jobs -_

“Ron, shut up.”

Draco turned and found Harry giving him a look of concern - not about what he’d do, but about him. It was silently asking if he was okay.

He needed to be at least okay. Harry expected him to be better than the sadistic words Draco wanted to say; Harry was assuming he would be. So Draco had to live up to that. He had to find some semblance of patience, and keep his temper.

He turned to Ron, and smiled like his teeth hurt. “Sorry.” He looked at Hermione and found something more genuine. “I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t vital. I know you’d change the world alone if you had to. I just meant - there are some barriers, still, for Muggleborns. Which needs to change. And I’m glad Luna can help til it does.”

She nodded, and her arm moved behind the table. Ron winced.

“I’m sorry too. Didn’t mean to fly off the handle.”

Draco shrugged awkwardly, unsure how to respond. “Never mind. Shall we have some more wine?”

Maybe this could actually work.

**April**

“Another week and you’re back at practice, Harry.”

“I am?”

“Yeah,” Draco said, smiling. Harry seized him in a kiss, and they celebrated. Twice.

Once Draco had gone into the stadium for his non-Harry work, and returned to find Harry making an elaborate balti - Harry loved spicy food - Harry brought up something surprising.

“I’ve been thinking about what I could do after Quidditch.”

“What?” Draco said. “Now?”

“Yeah. I mean - I want to stay with Quidditch while I can. I love it. But you were right, an injury like this has probably shortened my career, and it’s not like Quidditch careers last long anyway. I should think about it.”

Draco blinked at him, and Harry smiled sheepishly, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets like a teenager. “I didn’t wanna think about it before; I reckon I was scared, y’know? But now I’m really going back to it, and soon…”

Draco nodded. “That makes sense. Have you thought about what you might like to do?”

“A bit. I thought about it when I was thinking about leaving the Aurors - well, especially when I was daydreaming about it, and didn’t think it’d actually happen. I imagined a lot of different things.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Something with kids? I really like teaching people how to do things, y’know, I loved the DA. And kids might be different about the Harry Potter thing, maybe.”

Draco nodded.

“Although I don’t know if… I mean I love Teddy, but maybe that’s just because he’s my godson.”

“Yes, children can be awful,” Draco said sagely.

“I remember you when you were eleven, yeah.”

“Oi!”

Harry laughed, avoiding the hit. “Watch it! Careful of the balti.”

“Hmph.” He watched Harry work for a while. “Any other ideas?”

“I’ve thought about trying to get involved in Hermione’s group. Not research, I was always basically terrible at that - I’m all right at investigating, but if I hadn’t had Hermione carrying me on the research front I’d have been dead ten times over.”

“Probably,” said Draco, “though I think you’re brighter than you give yourself credit for.” Harry brightened at that, sending him a smile bright as a silver coin for Draco to slip into his pocket. He could take out the memory and polish it from time to time, Draco thought, and have his day brightened by the shine. He blinked away the whimsy. “So activism? Changing the world one sad werewolf cub at a time?”

“Well, there are lots of things that need fixing. And you were right at dinner, you know - it might not be fair, but having Luna around to speak to purebloods helps Hermione. And she’s famous too but I’ve got name recognition to burn.”

“That is certainly true.” Draco hitched himself up onto the kitchen table. After two attempts at helping Harry cook, they’d both agreed lessons could wait for something low-key. “I suppose you don’t really need a job.”

“What, so just be independently wealthy and powerful and influence politics?”

“A far worthier heir to my father than I could ever be,” Draco drawled. Harry made a face, laughing.

“How did you choose Quidditch?”

Harry shrugged, putting a lid over the balti and turning away from it. “Partly what I told you before about Ron, about thinking Quidditch could be a different way of helping the world. But also - I love flying. I’d never really had a job before, so I thought it made sense to choose something where I loved the thing itself. So that if the journalists or the coach or my teammates annoyed me, I’d still have that.”

“Makes sense. Speaking of the coach being annoying…” The conversation drifted.

They headed back to Draco’s after dinner, so he could feed Viviane and spend some time with her. When he got up the next morning, he found an eagle owl pecking at his kitchen window.

It was a letter with the Harpies seal in green and gold. He cracked it open immediately, and fell into a chair as he scanned the words.

_We are aware of the exemplary nature of your work for the Cannons this year… our Healer is sadly moving on… would like to invite you to come in and speak to us about the possibility of joining the Harpies team next season._

They were offering him an interview. 

Harry came down in Draco’s dressing gown, yawning, and found him still there. “Draco?”

“The Harpies want me to come in and do an interview,” he said, thrusting the parchment at Harry. “Their Healer’s leaving, and they contacted _me_.”

“Amazing!” Harry ignored the parchment in favour of grabbing Draco in a hug, and it made a sad little crinkle sound as their bodies met. “That’s brilliant, Draco! Are you gonna do it? You have to go in, at least.”

“I suppose,” said Draco, a little dazed. “I mean, I love the Cannons, but it’s an opportunity, isn’t it?” He remembered how working for the Cannons had felt like doom and despair at the beginning of the season, a sign of how boxed in he was by all the terrible things in his past, and smiled. He’d never have imagined getting here in just a season. And imagine where he could end up from here. “D’you think Ginny did this?”

Harry shrugged. “She might’ve put in a good word, I guess, since she knows me and the others - we’ve all been saying good things about you, it’s not just me. But that wouldn’t have been nearly enough by itself.” Harry’s smile dimmed a little. “I’d miss you a lot, not seeing you at work all the time.”

“Me too,” said Draco. “Still, it’d be better, I should think. You know I think the ethics are wonky, even with just sports Healing.”

“Ugh, ethics.” Harry made a face, and Draco laughed aloud, startled by the sarcasm.

“Screw the Harpies, I’m gonna make my fortune selling that quote to the _Prophet_.”

“Damn my weakness for Slytherins,” Harry lamented. “That reminds me, on the topic of possible future jobs - I thought about working with snakes.”

“What?” Draco said, startled.

“The only good thing Voldemort ever gave me was Parseltongue. And I’ve still got it, somehow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I was scared by it at first - I thought I might still have him inside me, that I wasn’t free of him. But Ron and Hermione helped me check, and I really think… it’s just what’s left. You know? Voldemort was with me for so long; even if I’m trying to move on, and I don’t have the nightmares as much… it’d be impossible for it to not leave a mark.”

Draco’s eyes travelled to the lightning-bolt scar without meaning to, and Harry smiled ruefully. 

“Well, I’m glad you got to take at least one good thing from it.”

“Me too. Y’know, lots of people think being a Parselmouth is dark, still. But I could use it to look after snakes, I think, and help learn about the magical ones. It’d be interesting.”

“Definitely.”

“I dunno if that’ll be the job yet, though.”

“You don’t have to know. You’re young yet.”

Harry smiled at him in the golden morning light of Draco’s poky kitchen, and made the chirrup noise he used to call Viviane. Draco snickered at it fondly, and said, “and I guess we’ve both got options.”

***

Harry got an unexpected letter of his own a few days later: one from Pansy. Draco recognised the handwriting immediately.

Harry didn’t show it to him, and Draco didn’t ask. Instead he watched over the edge of his mug of tea as Harry read. The surprisingly heavy dark brows furrowed, but by the end Harry smiled to himself.

“We should have dinner with Pansy sometime soon,” he said. 

“Great,” Draco said.

“Maybe somewhere public.”

“Is that your idea or hers?”

“Mine. Unless she’s subtly hinted it into my brain somehow.” Harry squinted at the letter again. “Either way, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” said Draco, warmed. “That sounds wonderful. Still, if we’re going to show the wizarding world the sight of you dining with me and her in public, let’s do it in May once the season’s over. I can’t be doing with fighting with the _Prophet_ and keeping you all on your brooms at once.”

“No problem.”

Draco hesitated. “Harry - you know, Greg Goyle visits London sometimes. And it’s - I know he did terrible things. I’m not asking you to be friends with him or anything. I just…” _I don’t want you to be angry with me because I am. I don’t want you to think less of me._

Harry’s face worked. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I could understand, I think, but I don’t know if that’s - I wasn’t there at Hogwarts that year, Draco, so I didn’t see it. But Neville’s my friend, so’s Ginny, so’s Luna and Seamus and… I can’t ignore what he did.” 

“I get that,” Draco said, nearly inaudibly. “I just… the Unforgivables were the only thing he was ever good at in school, you know, and we were all so scared. And a lot of it’s my fault. He and - and Vince, they both listened to me, they stuck with me when things were bad for years - and I… I was too scared to tell them what was happening, what I was doing, even when they were spending hours every day helping me. If I’d had the nerve to tell them not to… And Vince, he died because he was there with me. It was my idea.” He pressed a closed fist against his mouth and Harry enclosed him in a hug.

Draco stiffened for a moment, obscurely embarrassed, then relaxed into it.

“You saved Goyle’s life in the Room of Requirement,” Harry said quietly. “What Crabbe did, that wasn’t your fault. You don’t owe either of them.”

“Maybe not, but… I don’t know.” He thoroughly shamed his pureblood English ancestors at that point, as soppy emotion barrelled out of his throat. “You saved me back then, saved both of us, and… you’re saving me now. Expecting me to be better, it’s making me better. Even things like being nice those first few days when I started at the Cannons and I was really scared because you could’ve had me out on my ear. I should try and do that for Greg. Not - not that it’s the same, really… but y’know. Maybe I’m just trying to justify staying friends with him, because he’s my oldest friend and he was there when I was so lonely. Maybe if I was better I’d walk away and I’m just trying to imagine ways I can make it okay that I don’t want to.” He sucked in a wavering breath. “But I think I should… I should try and help him.”

“I suppose…” Harry said slowly. “I dunno. I don’t want to tell you not to help someone, I just…”

“I thought I was doomed after the war,” Draco said quietly. “And even just at the start of the year. It felt like… the war is probably the most important thing that’ll ever happen in my life. So how could I not be defined by what I did in it?”

Harry cringed. “I don’t want to be defined by the war. That’s part of why I didn’t become an Auror.”

“I know. And I don’t think it’s true any more. What comes after, that’s - it’s just as important, it’s as much how we make our lives. Hermione’ll change the world as much with her research in the end, she’ll help stop another Dark Lord from rising, or you and Weasley bringing joy - ”

“Or you. Stopping disability, healing people,” Harry said. “There’s heroism there too. I just don’t want you to feel obliged to be friends with someone out of guilt. Your life was in danger when you used Cruciatus on people - your parents’ lives, too. That’s not true for Goyle.”

“And when I tried it on you, in sixth year?”

Harry’s mouth twisted. “You were under such intense stress, you were so scared all the time, and you were a teenager.”

“That’s Greg, too.”

“Maybe. I wasn’t there, so maybe I just can’t tell if he was forced to do it or happy to get the chance.”

“Or in that grey area in the middle. What’s being forced to do something and what’s deciding that you’ll do it to get ahead, even if you don’t like it?”

Harry scrubbed a hand down his face. “This is a lot heavier than I was expecting this conversation to be.”

Draco gave a low laugh. “Yeah.”

After a few moments, Harry said, “d’you know I used the Cruciatus on Amycus Carrow?”

Draco jerked in surprise, almost knocking the breakfast plates flying. “What?”

“Yeah. He spat at McGonagall, and I just… I lost my temper. I dunno. I don’t think it’s the same as doing it to your classmates, he was the enemy, but - I also don’t know what the line is, exactly.”

“Like I said, there’s a grey area.” He paused, stunned. “I had no idea you… I suppose I don’t know you as well as I thought.” Draco looked up and caught fear in Harry’s expression, and touched his arm. “Don’t look like that. I still - you know I love you.”

The worry leached away from Harry’s eyes. “Yeah. Me too. Look, how about this - I’ll ask a few of my friends about Goyle. And I won’t get in the way of you writing letters to him or seeing him when he’s here - that’s not my decision. And… we’ll see, I guess.”

The lack of certainty was strangely reassuring; perhaps because he’d expected a flat no. Or perhaps because it suggested that Harry could understand how uncertain Draco felt about these things sometimes, that he wasn’t the only one flailing to know what the right thing was while his heroic boyfriend had all the answers.

“Is that okay?” Harry said after a moment or two of silence.

“Oh, sorry! Yes. Yes. Definitely.” He got up and parked himself on Harry’s lap, wanting more contact, and smiled as he felt Harry’s arms wrap round him, equally strong. Harry was going back on the pitch that coming week.

***

Harry spent his first week back at work alternating between joy and grumpy exhaustion. They didn’t have sex for two and a half days, before Harry made up for it with a mind-meltingly slow blowjob. It wasn’t until the second week that John put him back on the roster. That Saturday Draco woke up just before six a.m. He blinked, unsure why, until he felt an excited little wriggle from Harry next to him and heard Viviane give a warble of complaint.

“I’m playing again!” Harry hissed. His eyes were bright in the early-morning light. Draco growled and Harry chuckled. “Sorry.”

Draco was still faintly groggy at kick-off. Hermione and Ron joined him to watch Harry’s first game back. He’d been a little worried, but they seemed to understand he was working, and besides the roar of the fans at seeing Harry Potter back in the starting seven meant no awkward silence was possible.

The Cannons didn’t win, and Harry didn’t catch the Snitch. He’d come within a hair of it against a tough opponent, though, as Ron kept saying loudly, and for a first game after forty days away it was a good showing.

“D’you think he’ll be out partying tonight?” Hermione said over the noise of celebrating and commiserating fans slowly making their way from the stadium.

“Harry?” said Draco. “Maybe, but the plan was him making lamb jalfrezi and us having an, er, early night.”

She smirked a little but didn’t tease him about the euphemism. “Harry cooks for you?”

“Yeah, he cooks a lot more than I do.”

“Wow, he must really like you,” she said. “Cooking’s a bit fraught with him.”

“Oh yes, he said something about that," said Draco. "Suppose he likes me."

“It's more than that. The Dursleys forcing him to cook and clean for them when he was a kid left its mark, I think. For Harry, cooking is either survival or a declaration of love - nothing in between.”

“Dursleys?” Draco repeated numbly.

“His family, you know, the Muggles he grew up with.” She paused, and her eyes widened as she took in his expression. “Harry didn’t tell you.”

“That they forced him to cook and clean for them when he was a child? No. He’s never said a word about them, in fact.” Draco’s mind was flashing through all the times Harry had mentioned his childhood, recognising how he’d elided the family he’d grown up with. Draco didn’t even know their names. Why hadn’t he realised something was wrong? Another subconscious dismissal of Muggles, probably, and now he’d missed hurt that Harry was carrying because of it. Anger - with himself, with the Muggles, with Harry for not telling him - rose up painfully inside him.

“What else happened between them? What did they do to him?”

Hermione shook her head. “It’s not my place to tell you, Draco, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have done it now if I’d realised you didn’t know - Harry needs to be the one to tell you.”

Draco felt his face twist. If she wouldn’t tell him, how bad was it?

He turned from her without a word and vaulted the barrier between the staff seating and the pitch, racing for the players. Harry was already on his way towards them, grinning.

“That was so much fun!” he said. “I mean, you know I hate to lose, but just being back out here - ”

“That’s great,” Draco said, barely hearing him. “I need a word. Can we Apparate back to mine? Or yours, I don’t care, just - ”

“Are you okay?” Harry took hold of his shoulders, peering into his face. “Draco?”

“Me? I’m fine. It’s you I want to talk about.”

“Er, okay.” The confused frown was cute, and Draco wanted to appreciate it. But he was too busy with the memory of eleven-year-old Harry, who’d seemed so impervious to anything Draco could do to him, flinching at Draco’s jokes about his family not wanting him at Christmas.

He thought he might be sick.

Harry took him back to Grimmauld Place. Draco strode from the alley to the house without talking; he felt like if he opened his mouth he’d throw up or start shouting, and he wasn’t willing to do either of those in the street.

“Draco, what on earth’s wrong?” Harry said as the door closed behind them. Draco kept walking, going downstairs into the kitchen; he couldn’t make himself stop moving, fraught emotion making his limbs restless and tearing all the words he could’ve used out of his head. “Draco! You’re scaring me!”

At that he stopped dead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Harry huffed out a breath. “At least you’re talking now. What on earth’s happened?”

He paused for a moment. There was the urge to lie, to try and see what Harry would reveal on his own. Did he love Draco enough to be honest?

But no. He couldn’t do that to Harry. They were meant to be a team.

“Hermione told me about the Dursleys.”

Harry went pale at the name. “She what? During the game? How - what - ”

“She thought I already knew,” Draco said, and despite his best efforts heard his voice rising. “She just mentioned that she was surprised you’d cook for me a lot, because they’d made you when you were a child, she thought I already knew!”

“She shouldn’t have done that. It doesn’t matter now.”

“Of course it does!” Draco gestured at Harry. “We’ve talked about my fucking childhood, y’know, I was just - just too stupid or selfish to ask about yours. This whole time, I thought we were getting closer. I thought we understood each other. But there was all this, and you didn’t - ”

“I couldn’t! Even Ron and Hermione - I barely talk about it with them.” Harry’s voice was unrecognisable, twisted by pain and fear, and a wave of guilt crashed into Draco, a shockwave that stole his breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I - sit down, I’ll make tea.” Harry didn’t move and Draco drew out a chair for him, fear mounting in his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Harry dropped into the chair. Draco was afraid of crowding him, not wanting to push. So he made tea, eyes flickering between the kettle and Harry’s ashen face, and brought it to him without words.

Harry drew the mug towards him, curling his fingers round its warmth. Draco hesitated, then reached out to stroke Harry’s hair. He leant into the movement and Draco repeated it, watching Harry’s hair as it sprang back every time from being smoothed down.

“We should’ve gone back to mine,” he said quietly. “Viviane would’ve been happy to be stroked by you.”

Harry laughed a little. “I would’ve taken us there if I’d known you were gonna ambush me.”

Draco’s chest hurt. “I’m sorry, Harry. I shouldn’t’ve.”

“No,” Harry agreed, then sighed. “But I know it was a shock.”

Harry seemed small suddenly, his shoulders drawn in, letting Draco stroke his hair. He was so impossibly brave; Draco always thought of him as having nerve enough for the both of them, brave enough to tell the truth when Draco shied away. That Harry could be secretive and perhaps ashamed, there was a place where Harry was crouched round this unspoken thing - it scoured Draco’s skin like fire.

He drew a chair in with his feet without looking, awkwardly, then sat down at ninety degrees from Harry. He kept stroking Harry’s hair, not wanting to speak. He’d made such a hash of things already.

“It’s not some big secret or anything,” Harry said. He sounded on the edge of tears. “I don’t - I barely think about it any more. Ron and Hermione know because we were friends when I still had to go back to them every summer - Ron rescued me when I was twelve, with his brothers - but I hardly - ”

“Rescued you?”

“Er.” Harry froze, blinking behind his glasses. His voice was wavering a little, but still sounded upsettingly casual as he spoke. “Well, they thought I’d used magic in the house. I hadn’t - it was Dobby, actually - but they locked me in this bedroom all the time and put bars on the window, so I couldn’t send Hedwig for help, and then Ron and F-Fred and George, they came in a flying car to get me out.”

“I - I barely know where to begin,” Draco choked out. “They - what the fuck - they put bars on your window?”

Harry shrugged a little. “It was maybe the worst, that summer. Not enough food. Although at least I had natural light - I was sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs most of my childhood - ”

“ _What_?” Draco yelled. He thrust his hand through his hair, clawing it as he tried to stay calm and easy to talk to. “They - fucking _bastards_ \- _why_?”

His shoulders moved in a little shrug. “A lot of reasons, probably - but basically they didn’t like magic.”

Draco heard his father’s voice in his head for long moments. This was why they didn’t mix with Muggles - wizarding children left with them weren’t safe, they’d either be treated badly or turned against wizards - nothing had changed since the burning times -

“Don’t,” Harry said.

Draco cut off that train of thought as hard as he could.

“I can see what you’re thinking but none of this was normal, they were just… awful, and scared of anything different.”

Not too unlike his own parents. The thought reminded him of their conversation about Draco’s family legacy, and how Harry had said he’d never ask Draco to turn away from his mother, because she loved him; because she would’ve done anything for him.

The thought of Harry recognising that, and lacking it - or rather, lacking a mother to grow up with, to love him like that every day -

Draco’s eyes burnt.

This was what lay at the heart of Harry Potter. Not Voldemort’s evil melodrama, but growing up without a family that loved him.

“Harry, Harry,” he said urgently. Harry turned to look at him, and his expression changed when he saw Draco’s face, in a way Draco couldn’t read. “Listen, I’m - I’m so sorry. We never have to talk about this again, I promise. But you know - you know you’ve got people now, don’t you? Me, and Ron and Hermione, and the Weasleys, and - ”

Harry kissed him to silence, then rested his forehead against Draco’s. “I know.”

Draco was going to fix this.

Well, no, he realised as soon as he’d thought it. He wasn’t; the only thing that could do that was a Time-Turner. But he was going to stick by Harry, and love him and take care of him day by day, until Harry’s childhood felt as small and distant as a bad dream.

**May**

The last game of the season was, once again, lost by the Cannons.

“It’s okay,” Harry said with a shrug on the pitch afterwards, as he took off his helmet. He was smiling, his emerald eyes turned green-gold by the sun. The pitch was emptying around them, the spectators almost gone and the players Apparating to the pub, but Harry and Draco stayed in the late-afternoon warmth together, standing close and smiling. “It’s my first season. And honestly, I’m just so happy you got me back onto the pitch again.”

Draco grinned at him. “Not going to miss those trophies? I seem to remember you half tearing my face off every game back at Hogwarts.”

Harry laughed. “Well, I do like to win. But it’s not… you know, with a career, you’ve gotta be playing the long game. Doing the work, day by day, that matters more than the trophies. The trophies feel like they last, cos it’s what gets recorded, but it’s not what makes a career.”

“How very evolved of you. Feeling philosophical?”

“The summer brings it out in me.”

That was something Quidditch had in common with Hogwarts: they’d finished for the year, and now there was a long, warm, empty stretch of time while they all worked out what to do next. 

“The season’s over,” Harry added. “What now?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said, slipping two fingers behind Harry’s belt buckle and reeling him in. “All these options, this Harpies business, I’m not used to it. After the war I’d barely realised my life wasn’t over before it started feeling like it really was.”

“And now you know it’s not?”

“I’m a bright boy, I worked it out.” Harry laughed and kissed him. As they separated, Draco said, “you know, that’s not true. I didn’t work it out, really.” He took Harry’s hand as they walked off the pitch together. “You taught me.”


End file.
